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Tag: Constitutionalism

  • EPISODE 6: THE RECKONING

    EPISODE 6: THE RECKONING

    Enen Legal World Logo.


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we met Mzee Zakayo, who never built a granary but ate from the labor of others. His son Okello Anyapo inherited his appetite but not his cattle, and emptied his uncle Owera Apur’s granary because he was given access without rules.

    In Episode 2, we lifted our eyes to Uganda’s constitutional granary, built in 1995, and watched Parliament abandon its duty to build walls around it. We saw the seven famines: the Shs 763 billion justice tax, the incompetence shield, the two‑man cartel, the executive pocket veto, the criminalization of transparency, the ghost tier of unaccountable actors, and the commission that judges itself.

    In Episode 3, we watched while the petition slept. Application No. 11 of 2025, filed to halt judicial appointments, was never cause‑listed. The new Chief Justice and Principal Judge were sworn in while the application to pause their own appointments gathered dust in a court the Chief Justice once presided over.

    In Episode 4, we knelt under the ojede cii with Owera Apur. We heard him pour out his soul: “How long shall the wicked gloat? How long shall the guilty feast while the innocent gnash their teeth in hunger?” The leaves trembled. Something, somewhere, had heard the cry.

    In Episode 5, the ancestors answered across the border. We watched Cecil Miller, a man who never earned his seat, climb to Chief Justice, strangle habeas corpus, fire a judge with a single letter, and finally stood naked in a parking lot, shouting “Nyayo!” while cameras clicked and newspapers stayed silent. We learned that the ancestors do not file cause lists. They let the consequences ripen. And when the fruit is ready, it falls.

    Now we return to Abongodero. The leaves have stopped trembling. Owera Apur has risen from the roots. And the question that began under the tree must now be answered by the living.

    I. THE PROVERB FULFILLED

    The elders of Abongodero had a saying:

    You never send a starving man to the granary.

    But we did.

    We sent Okello Anyapo, the Judicial Service Commission, into the granary with no rules, no walls, no oversight. We watched him eat. We watched him grow fat. We watched him smile and say: “You allowed me. I merely accessed.”

    And then we blamed him for being hungry.

    But the fault was never Okello’s. The fault was Owera’s, the farmer who opened the door without building the walls. The fault was the village that admired Zakayo’s ingenuity and named itself after his emptiness.

    The fault was Parliament’s.

    For thirty years, Parliament held the keys to the granary. For thirty years, they walked past it, admired it, named committees after it, but never built the walls.

    The Constitution commanded them. The people expected them. History waited for them.

    And they did nothing.

    II. THE SEVEN FAMINES ARE STILL WITH US

    Now the famine is here.

    Not the famine of weather. Not the famine of soil. A famine of justice.

    · Shs 763 billion paid in bribes by court users, 43% of the justice sector budget.
    · Magistrates protected from removal for incompetence while Judges, Justices of Appeal and Justices of the Supreme Court face removal for incompetence.
    · Two people in a private room deciding who judges the nation.
    · The Attorney General holding a pocket veto over judicial discipline.
    · Transparency criminalized, a crime to look inside the granary and see what is stolen.
    · A ghost tier of unaccountable officers exercising power without oversight.
    · A commission that investigates, prosecutes, judges, and acquits itself.

    And when the villagers cried out?

    Injunctions. Uncause‑listed petitions. Stalled elections. Appointments proceeding like wedding ceremonies that will not wait for objections.

    And finally, at the 2026 New Law Year, the warning:

    “Social media attacks on judges will not be tolerated. Online criticism causes trauma and will be crushed.”

    Trauma from tweets?

    Try the trauma of five years on remand while your case gathers dust.
    Try the trauma of losing ancestral land because you cannot afford a surveyor.
    Try the trauma of watching a bribe walk free while your child rots in detention.
    Try the trauma of knowing that the man who now sits as Chief Justice once presided over the court that received an application to halt his own appointment, and the court never listed it.

    That is trauma.

    III. BUT THE ANCESTORS ARE NOT THE ONLY AUDITORS

    The ancestors answered Miller. They let the consequences ripen. They stood him naked in a parking lot.

    But the villagers of Kenya did not sit under a tree and wait. They organized. They spoke. They asked the questions that the powerful did not want to hear. They built institutions; the Law Society of Kenya, the human rights groups, the journalists who published what the newspapers would not, and they forced the system to answer.

    Owera Apur did not return from the ojede cii to do nothing. He returned to the village square. He returned to the burial grounds. He returned to the ballot.

    Because the ancestors do their work slowly. The living must do theirs urgently.

    IV. THE BURIAL QUESTIONS

    Across Uganda, in a thousand burials, graduations, and church introductions, your Members of Parliament are sitting on white chairs, waiting to be praised.

    They have come to eat. They have come to be photographed. They have come to say, “I feel your pain.”

    This time, you must ask them something different.

    Not: “What have you brought us?”

    But: “What have you done about what takes from us?”

    Stand at the burial. Wait for the microphone. Look at your MP, whether they are Minister, Whip, or backbencher, and ask:

    “Honourable, year in, year out:

    We cannot get bail. We rot in remand for years before seeing a judge.

    We lose our land at the High Court because the system is slow, expensive, and rigged against peasants.

    Justice is only for those who can bribe or wait.

    You are our voice in Parliament.

    What have you done, specifically, to fix the courts that inflict this suffering on us?

    Have you consulted the Uganda Law Society?

    Have you studied the reforms they propose for judicial appointments, discipline, and accountability?

    Do you even know that the Uganda Law Society exists?

    And if you know, what Bill have you tabled, seconded, or supported to build the granary our Constitution demanded thirty years ago?”

    Ask this question.

    Not on WhatsApp. Not in a private message.

    In public. On the record. Where the cameras are. Where the other mourners are listening.

    Because an MP who deflects at a burial has nowhere to hide.

    Because a question asked in the village square becomes a political fact that cannot be uncause‑listed.

    Because this is how pressure builds, not from the top down, but from the grave up.

    The Silence After the Question

    If your MP stammers, they will remember that stammer on Election Day.

    If your MP promises vaguely, record the promise. Send it to them in one year. Ask again.

    If your MP says, “I didn’t know about this,” you have just educated a legislator. Your work is done, for now.

    If your MP says, “I am already working with the Uganda Law Society,” ask for the Bill number. Ask for the Committee stage date. Ask when the granary will be built.

    Do not let them leave that chair without accountability.

    And then, do this;

    Call your area MP. Not to abuse them. To instruct them.

    “Honourable, I voted for you. Now I need you to table a Private Member’s Bill, or push the government to table one, that finally regulates the Judicial Service Commission and the President in judicial appointments and discipline.

    The Uganda Law Society has already done the homework. They have studied the models. They have drafted provisions. They are waiting for a Member of Parliament with courage enough to carry their work into the Chamber.

    Why are you not that Member?”

    One call changes nothing.

    Ten thousand calls change everything.

    V. TO THE 12TH PARLIAMENT: THE NEW GUARD

    You have been voted in. In May 2026, you will be sworn in.

    History greets you warmly, as it greets all new MPs. You hold privilege, power, and a brief season when the public still listens.

    You may fill your five years with funerals, allowances, foreign trips, Anti-Citizen legislation like the recentlt passed Sovereignty Act, 2026. You can choose to discuss mundane things like “Nyash” (like Hon. Odur Jonathan) or even fart in the august house (a video Speaker Annet Anita Among quizzing and probing which member of Parliament had visited the air is on public record). For some of you, you may merely look to rehearsals for 2031, which the media has widely reported is usually rigged. 

    Or you may build. But I verily warn you; if you don’t champion

    The fixes demanded in ULS Constitutional Petition No. 12 of 2025 do not require miracles. They require sweat.

    · Legislation that regulates the regulators.
    · Discipline standards that apply equally from magistrate to Chief Justice.
    · Structures that separate friendship from accountability.
    · A Judicial Service Commission where the Attorney General does not sit in judgment over judges he has fought in court.

    The Uganda Law Society’s Judiciary Affairs Committee has done the technical work. They are not your enemies. They are your research department, waiting to be retained by democracy.

    Walk across the stream. Consult them. Then legislate. But I verily say this to you: If you don’t legislate the reforms hinted here and many others, your voters will be thrown under the bus. They will continue to pay the “justice tax” and rot in jails under the weight of case backlog. And if they listen to us, they may hold you accountable at the ballot on polling day!

    VI. TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

    The villagers are watching your door too.

    They know that the Uganda Law Society filed Application No. 11 of 2025 in July last year, an urgent application asking this court to halt all judicial appointments until the main petition could be heard. They know the application argued that the Judicial Service Commission was unlawfully constituted, missing the two nominees the Constitution requires from the Uganda Law Society.

    That application was never cause‑listed. No reasons were given.

    The appointments proceeded anyway. The new Chief Justice and Principal Judge were sworn in. And the man who now presides over this court once presided over the very court that received that application, the application to pause his own appointment.

    The villagers know these things because they are public facts, not allegations.

    Now they wait. Not for a guarantee of victory. Not for a prediction of outcome. They wait to see whether this court has the courage to list the application—to summon the Judicial Service Commission, the body that recruits judges and holds the power to initiate removal of judges, and to hear the arguments of the Uganda Law Society.

    Cause‑list the interlocutory application, My Lords.

    Let the court sit. Let the lawyers speak. Let the Judicial Service Commission, your recruiters, your employers, the body that can initiate your removal; be called to account before the very judges it helps appoint.

    It does not matter, in the end, whether the application is granted or denied. What matters is this: does the court have the courage to summon its own employer? Does it have the spine to look at the body that controls judicial careers and say: “Sit down. Answer. We will hear this case.”

    The people are not asking for a favorable outcome. They are asking for a court that is not timid. A court that does not hide behind cause lists. A court that can be a bully‑beater; that can summon the powerful and demand an accounting.

    Show us that the Judicial Service Commission is not above the law. Show us that it is not above the courts.

    Cause‑list the application. Let the world see whether this bench has balls made of titanium alloy.

    The proverb is not a verdict. It is a question. And the question hangs in the air, waiting for your answer.

    VII. TO THE CITIZEN WHO FEELS HELPLESS

    You are not powerless.

    You do not need a law degree to ask a question. You do not need a Twitter verification badge to demand accountability. You do not need to file a petition to remind your MP that they work for you.

    The granary will be built when building it costs more than neglecting it.

    Make neglect expensive.

    Ask the question at the burial. Record the answer. Share it. Remember it on Election Day.

    And when you feel the weight of the system pressing down, when you have knocked on every door and found them locked; remember Miller.

    Remember that the ancestors are patient.
    Remember that parking lots are everywhere.
    Remember that the system you build to protect yourself may one day become the cage you cannot escape.

    But also remember this: the ancestors do not act alone. They act through us. Through the questions we ask, the votes we cast, the institutions we build, the silence we refuse.

    The ancestors answered Miller. But the Law Society of Kenya, the human rights lawyers, the journalists, the citizens—they answered too. They did not wait for the parking lot. They built the walls that Miller’s allies had left empty.

    So shall we.

    VIII. THE CHOICE

    Mzee Zakayo is long dead.

    But his children are still in Parliament.
    Some of them sit on the Judicial Service Commission.
    Some of them wear robes and warn about trauma from tweets.

    And the villagers?

    They are still standing at the granary door. Still waiting. Still hungry.

    Abongodero is tired.

    Hunger remembers.

    And this time, the people are not just watching the granary door.

    They are standing at the burial, waiting for the microphone.

    They are standing at the courthouse, waiting for the cause list.

    They are standing at the ballot, waiting for 2031.

    Build the granary, Honourable.

    Cause‑list the application, My Lords.

    Ask the question, Citizen.

    Or be prepared to answer for the emptiness;

    In this life, and at the judgment.

    You never send a starving man to the granary.

    And you never send a sleeping Parliament to guard justice.

    But you also never leave the granary to the ancestors alone.
    The end!


    DISCLAIMERS

    1. On Sub Judice

    This series references ULS Constitutional Petition No. 12 of 2025 and related applications only as evidence of public grievance and legislative failure. It does not urge the Constitutional Court to grant or dismiss the petition. It does not analyze the merits of the petitioners’ arguments. It does not predict or demand any particular judicial outcome. The duty of Parliament to legislate exists independently of this or any litigation.

    All facts presented regarding judicial appointments and cause lists are matters of public record.

    2. On Intent

    This series is not a call for mob justice, disorder, or disrespect toward judicial officers. It is a call for legislative accountability, civic engagement, and institutional reform. It is written in the tradition of the village baraza; where truth is spoken plainly, proverbs carry the weight of law, and leaders are expected to listen without punishing the messenger.

    Criticism of systems is not attack on persons. Demanding accountability is not contempt.

    3. On Legal Advice

    Nothing in this series constitutes legal advice. The author is an Advocate and member of the Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society, but writes here in his personal capacity. Readers with specific legal problems should consult a licensed practitioner.

    Enen Ambrose
    Advocate
    Member, Judiciary Affairs Committee
    Uganda Law Society.

  • EPISODE 4: HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE? Owera Apur’s supplication to ancestral justice.

    EPISODE 4: HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE? Owera Apur’s supplication to ancestral justice.

    Enen Legal World Logo


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we visited Abongodero, the village named after Mzee Zakayo’s ingenuity. Zakayo never built a granary. He traded cattle for the harvest of others. His son, Okello Anyapo, inherited land but not discipline. When hunger came, his uncle Owera Apur, the only farmer who actually built, opened his granary to him. No rules. Just access. Okello emptied it, smiled, and said: “You allowed me. I merely accessed.” The proverb echoes still: You never send a starving man to the granary.

    In Episode 2, we lifted our eyes from the village and saw Uganda’s constitutional granary, built in 1995. The Constituent Assembly, our Owera, filled it with independence, fairness, accountability, and public trust. Then they handed the keys to Parliament and commanded: build walls, regulate who enters, who eats, who guards. For thirty years, Parliament did nothing. They left the granary to the Judicial Service Commission—a body of insiders, judges, and the Attorney General. It was as if Owera had handed Okello the keys and appointed his hungriest siblings as overseers. We witnessed the seven famines: the Shs 763 billion justice tax, the incompetence shield, the two‑man recruitment cartel, the executive pocket veto, the criminalization of transparency, the ghost tier of unaccountable officials, and the commission that judges itself. When the Uganda Law Society cried out, it was met with injunctions, uncause‑listed petitions, stalled elections, and the quiet gutting of the granary.

    In Episode 3, we watched while the petition slept. ULS Constitutional Petition No. 12 of 2025 was filed, laying bare the rot. Alongside it came Application No. 11 of 2025, asking the court to halt all judicial appointments until the petition was decided. The Constitutional Court did not cause‑list that application. So the appointments proceeded. The new Chief Justice, Flavian Zeija, and the new Principal Judge, Jane Francis Abodo, were sworn in, while the man who would become Chief Justice had presided over the very court that received the application to pause his own appointment. The court did not list it. No reasons were given. In Abongodero, the elders say: when the man guarding the granary door benefits from what passes through it, the door stays open.

    Now we arrive at the question no constitution can answer.

    Of invocations, supplication to the ancestors!

    Under the ancient ojede cii tree in Abongodero, as the sun bled its last light across the horizon and the first shadows of night crept in like uninvited mourners, Owera Apur returned alone. The shea nut tree-yao, stood immovable, its 160‑year‑old trunk scarred and resolute, roots plunging deep into the fertile black earth that had swallowed generations of the departed. Its wide canopy spread like outstretched arms, ready to receive the heaviest of burdens. No one else was there. Only the wind, the rustling leaves, and the aching silence of a man whose soul had reached its limit.

    He fell to his knees at the base of the trunk, pressing his forehead against the rough bark until it bit into his skin. His hands clutched the earth, fingers digging into the soil as though he could pull the ancestors up by their very bones. Tears already streamed down his weathered face, unchecked, unashamed. And then the plea began, not as words, but as a broken wail from the depths of his spirit, echoing the desperate cries of mothers who once stood barren before the altar, begging for life where death had taken root.

    The Yao (Shea-nut) tree. Copyright owned by Marco Schimdt. Used under creative commons license


    “Ancestors of this land! You who planted the first seeds under this very ojede cii… hear me! I pour out my soul before you like water spilled on thirsty ground. My heart is poured out; my spirit is crushed. How long, O spirits of the soil and sky, how long will you stand silent while the wicked gloat over our suffering? How long shall you watch the thief laugh while the righteous weep blood?”

    He struck his chest with a closed fist, once, twice, three times, each blow a drumbeat of agony.

    “Zakayo… my brother… my blood… you who walked this earth before me, you who left us too soon, where are you in the realm of the ancestors? Come near! Stand with me under this tree that has outlived us both. I call you by name, Zakayo, as a child calls for its father in the dark. You who focused only on trade, on the markets, on the coins that flowed through your hands… why did you forget? Why did you not teach your son Okello the sacred things? The hard work that bends the back but strengthens the soul? The resilience that stands when storms come? The honesty that keeps a man’s word sharper than any spear? The endurance that tills the land until it yields, even when the rains refuse to fall?”

    Owera’s voice cracked, rising into a lament that shook the leaves above him.

    “You left him weak, Zakayo! A son who cannot till the soil, who cannot plant one seed with his own hands, who cannot endure even one dry season without complaint. Yet he feels entitled, entitled to be fed, entitled to the inheritance, entitled to the sweat of others while he sits in the shade and demands! Entitlement without accountability! A child who never learned that the earth gives only to those who bleed into it first. And now he has become the thief, the one who rigs the elders with bribes and twisted promises, the one who silences the council that should guard justice. He walks untouched, laughing, while we starve in spirit. How now shall we live, my brother? Tell me, how shall we live when the son you left behind devours what the ancestors planted for all?”

    He rose unsteadily, circling the massive trunk, palms sliding over the bark as if reading every scar of time.

    “Spirits of Abongodero, guardians who remember every oath sworn beneath this ojede cii… contend with him! Rise up against Okello as you once rose against those who betrayed the land. Let his rigged elders tremble in their sleep. Let their tongues turn bitter with the silver they swallowed. How long will you watch the wicked gloat? How long shall the guilty feast while the innocent gnash their teeth in hunger? The scales are broken. The voice of the wronged is buried under promises and lies. The family bleeds still because justice is denied. Zakayo, intercede! Ojede, our father, intercede too! Manaci our grandfather and Oluge our great great gandfather, all of you, tell the ancestors: the wound festers. Your own blood, Okello you left behind has become the shadow that blocks the sun.”

    The plea deepened, repeating like waves crashing against an unyielding shore. Owera poured libation from a calabash, water mixed with Wiri (kwete), letting it soak into the roots while his voice rose higher, raw and unrelenting.

    “Ancestors, if you yet walk among us, if blood still calls to blood… see my tears! See my brokenness! I have no more strength to carry this alone. The child you left behind, Zakayo, has grown into a man who knows only taking, never giving. He cannot plant, cannot harvest, cannot endure, yet he claims everything as his right. Entitlement without sweat! Without honesty! Without the resilience you never taught him! And now the elders dance to his tune, the council is bought unlike Ojede and Manaci, who resolved disputes between their people in Abongodero with stoic intergrity. Now we are left asking: How shall we live? Shall we teach our own children to bow to thieves? Shall we not pass on the legacies of Ojede and Manaci? Shall we swallow silence until it poisons our blood? Shall the ojede cii itself bear witness to our shame forever?”

    He fell to the ground again, prostrate, forehead in the dust, body shaking with sobs that came from a place deeper than grief.

    “How long, O ancestors? How long shall you watch the wicked prosper while we waste away? How long shall Okello’s laughter echo across the land you blessed? Intervene! Unravel the knots he has tied with silver and deceit. Expose the bribes in the full light of day. Let the rigged council fall like dry leaves in the wind. Shake this tree if you hear me! Stir the branches! Let Zakayo’s voice thunder through the canopy! Give us a sign that we are not forsaken, that justice sleeps but will awaken like a lion from its lair!”

    The night had fully claimed the sky. Owera Apur’s voice had grown hoarse, yet the lament continued pouring out, wave after wave, until the air itself felt heavy with the weight of his words. He remained there, drenched in sweat and tears, chest heaving, hands still clutching the sacred roots. The ojede cii stood silent… but the leaves began to tremble, not from wind alone. A single low murmur seemed to rise from the depths of the trunk, as though the ancestors were gathering, listening, weighing every broken syllable.

    The crescendo hung in the darkness like smoke from a sacrificial fire, thick, unrelenting, desperate. The plea had been poured out completely, soul‑bare and unfiltered, just as a barren woman once poured out her anguish before the altar, vowing everything if only life would come. Now the veil was torn wide open. The spirits hovered close. The tree itself seemed to breathe.

    And under its ancient shade, Owera Apur waited, heart laid bare, knowing that something, somewhere, had heard the cry.


    In the next episode: we shall see that ancestors have answered prayers before, elsewhere, far away from Abongodero.

    Episode 5 drops tomorrow. 5 PM.

    [End of Episode 4]

  • EPISODE 3: WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    EPISODE 3: WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    Enen Legal World Logo


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we met Mzee Zakayo, who never built a granary but ate from the labor of others. His son Okello Anyapo inherited his appetite but not his cattle, and emptied his uncle Owera’s granary because he was given access without rules. In Episode 2, we lifted our eyes to Uganda’s constitutional granary, built in 1995, and watched Parliament abandon its duty to build walls around it. We saw the seven famines: the Shs 763 billion justice tax, the incompetence shield, the two-man cartel, the executive pocket veto, the criminalization of transparency, the ghost tier of unaccountable actors, and the commission that judges itself.

    THIS IS THE SOIL FROM WHICH ULS CONSTITUTIONAL PETITION NO. 12 OF 2025: UGANDA LAW SOCIETY VS ATTORNEY GENERAL ROSE

    The petition was filed. The Application for a temporary injunction to halt Judicial appointments pending disposal of the main petition; The arguments were made. The rot was laid bare.

    And the Constitutional Court is in no hurry.

    The cause list does not call it. The months pass. The granary empties further.

    Every day the petition sleeps is a day Okello eats.

    Every delay is a verdict delivered without judgment, a verdict that says: this urgency is not our urgency.

    The villagers are watching the courthouse door, just as they watch the granary door.

    And the door does not open.

    WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    An urgent Constitutional Application, Application No. 11 of 2025, was filed alongside the main petition. It asked the court to halt all judicial appointments pending the determination of the substantive petition.

    Among the grounds: the Judicial Service Commission was unlawfully constituted, missing the two nominees the Constitution requires from the Uganda Law Society.

    The Constitutional Court did not cause-list that application.

    So the appointments proceeded.

    The new Chief Justice, the Hon. Fr. Flavian Zeija, was sworn in.
    The new Principal Judge, the Hon. Judge Jane Francis Abodo, was sworn in.

    Before his elevation, the Hon. Dr. Justice Zeija was the Deputy Chief Justice. In that capacity, he presided over the very Constitutional Court that received Application No. 11 of 2025, the application asking the court to pause appointments, including his own.

    The court did not list the application. No reasons were given. The appointments proceeded.

    In Abongodero, the elders would say: when the man guarding the granary door benefits from what passes through it, the door stays open.

    These are facts. Draw your own conclusions.

    THE POWER TO STOP ALL THIS LIES IN YOUR HANDS AS A CITIZEN AND AJURI CONSTITUENCY IS PROOF OF CONCEPT.

    The Honorable Hamson Obua did not lose by accident.

    He rehearsed monarchy in public. He crowned himself Holy Trinity, God the Father, Honorable Member of Parliament, Ajuri Constituency, God the Son, Government Chief and God the Holy Spirit, Vice National Chairperson of the National Resistance Movement for Northern Uganda of political titles. He spoke succession like family inheritance: Museveni, then Muhoozi, then Muhoozi’s children.

    Ajuri listened.

    They watched soldiers. They watched a disputed poll. They watched power glare at them from armored vehicles.

    And they voted again.

    Twice in under one month.

    History does not always move slowly. Sometimes it slaps.

    Enter Badman Jalameso.

    Teacher. Organizer. Refusal embodied. Not a dynasty. Not a surname throne. Just a man carried by exhaustion with entitlement.

    Badman Jalameso is not a saint. He is a signal.

    The signal is this: voters will rise when the granary stays empty. They will require answers and when the answers are not forthcoming, The leader who fails to answer appropriately will be sent back home.

    —

    **[End of Episode 3]**

  • EPISODE 2: CHRONICLES OF ABONGODERO VILLAGE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL GRANARY.

    EPISODE 2: CHRONICLES OF ABONGODERO VILLAGE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL GRANARY.

    Enen Legal World Logo


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we visited Abongodero, the village named after Mzee Zakayo’s ingenuity. Zakayo never built a granary. He traded cattle for the harvest of others. His son, Okello Anyapo, inherited land but not discipline. When hunger came, his uncle Owera Apur, the only farmer who actually built, opened his granary to him. No rules. Just access. Okello emptied it, smiled, and said: “You allowed me. I merely accessed.” The proverb, which came from the lesson which Abongodero learnt from Okello Anyapo still echoes: You never send a starving man to the granary.

    NOW LIFT YOUR EYES FROM THE VILLAGE.

    In 1995, Uganda built a granary.

    It was called the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, our Owera, sweated over it. They filled it with grains, cereals and legumes: independence, fairness, accountability, public trust. They stored enough justice to last generations.

    Then they handed the keys to Parliament and said:

    “Guard this. Build walls around it. Regulate who enters, who eats, who guards. Pass laws to guide the President and the Judicial Service Commission in appointing, disciplining, and removing judicial officers.“

    That was the command. Clear. Deliberate. Unambiguous, store the nation’s granary of justice to feed generations and posterity. 

    For thirty years, Parliament has done what the villagers of Abongodero did.

    They admired the granary.

    They walked around it. They named committees after it. They photocopied the Constitution into the Judicial Service Commission Act, sprinkled it with procedure, some insidous confidentiality and went home. They called that a good day’s job and pocketed fat salaries for dereliction of duty.

    They left the rest to the Commission.


    And what is this Commission?

    A body composed largely of insiders. Judges. Judicial actors. The Attorney General, the government’s chief defender, seated comfortably in a structure that decides the fate of judges who sometimes rule against his own client.

    It is as if Owera had not only handed Anyapo the keys, but appointed Anyapo’s hungriest siblings as the oversight committee to stop him from collecting excessive grains from the granary.

    Friends regulating friends.

    Parliament granted access. Parliament abandoned responsibility.

    And Okello entered.

    BEHOLD THE SEVEN FAMINES

    1. The Shs 763 Billion “Justice Tax”

    The Inspectorate of Government’s 2021 “Cost of Corruption” report estimated that Ugandan court users paid Shs 763 billion in bribes—43% of the 2019 justice sector budget.

    Why?

    Because Parliament never built the walls. The 2025 Regulations ensure that bribery does not lead to a judicial officer’s automatic removal. It whispers. It negotiates. It retires quietly with benefits.

    At any judiciary function, you will hear rhetorical sloganeering about zero tolerance to corruption.  The truth is the leadership and the whole institution preaches water and drinks wine. The structure of the Judicial Service Regulations, 2025 creates elite favors for the Judge, Registrars and the Magistrates.


    We hunt “small thieves” in the civil service while the gatekeepers negotiate their exit through cabalist legislation.

    2. The Incompetence Shield

    A High Court judge can be removed for incompetence.

    But for magistrates, the men and women deciding the everyday fate of boda riders, widows, and shopkeepers, incompetence does not lead to automatic removal. Parliament has allowed a regime where the “big fish” are fired for failing, but the “small sharks” are legally protected and recycled.

    Why are judicial officers more “special” than nurses, teachers, engineers or lawyers in the civil service or private sector who are fired the moment they prove incompetent?

    Because Parliament never built the walls.

    3. The “Two-Man” Recruitment Cartel

    Parliament’s silence allowed the Judicial Service Commission to create committees where the quorum is a mere two people, less than 50% of the committee.

    The entire future of Uganda’s Bench can now be decided by two individuals in a private room, bypassing the multi-stakeholder wisdom the Constitution mandates.

    Two people.

    Deciding who judges you.

    And Parliament watches.

    4. The Executive “Pocket Veto”

    Under Section 13(6) of the Act, no judge can be disciplined unless the Attorney General, the government’s own lawyer, is physically present.

    By simply not showing up, the Executive holds a de facto veto over judicial accountability.

    The government’s defender decides whether the judges who rule against the government face discipline.

    You do not need a law degree to smell this rot.

    5. Criminalizing Transparency

    Instead of “open justice,” Parliament enacted Sections 17 and 23, making it a criminal offense to disclose Judicial Service Commission records without permission.

    They didn’t just fail to build the granary.

    They made it a crime to look inside and see what is being stolen.

    6. The “Non-Accountable” Ghost Tier

    By failing to define “Judicial Officer” properly, the law creates a phantom tier of Registrars, Deputy Registrars, Assistant Registrars, Chief Magistrates and Tribunal actors who exercise power over citizens but are legally insulated from oversight.

    They have the power of a judge.

    They have the accountability of a ghost.

    7. The Commission That Judges Itself

    The Judicial Service Commission receives complaints. Investigates them. Prosecutes them. Hears them. Decides them.

    Investigator. Prosecutor. Judge. Jury.

    All in one hut.

    We are warned about such concentration of power. But warnings without legislative correction are like a quarrel of drunkards at the village square.

    Parliament heard the warning.

    Parliament did nothing.

    AND WHEN THE VILLAGERS COMPLAINED…

    When the Uganda Law Society, noisy, stubborn, unapologetic  and unyielding, attempted to intervene?

    Injunctions.
    Uncause-listed petitions.
    Elections stalled.
    Appointments to the Judiciary proceeded like wedding ceremonies that will not wait for objections.

    The granary was gutted politely.

    “SHUT UP! YOU ARE GIVING US TRAUMA”

    At the 2026 New Law Year, Chief Justice Flavian Zeija warned that social media attacks on judges would not be tolerated. Online criticism, he said, causes trauma and will be crushed.

    Trauma from tweets?

    Try the trauma of five years on remand while your case gathers dust.
    Try the trauma of losing ancestral land because you cannot afford a surveyor.
    Try the trauma of watching a bribe walk free while your child rots in detention.

    The Uganda Law Society replied, correctly, that scrutiny is constitutional oxygen.

    But the Chief Justice’s instinct was not an accident.

    It was Okello Anyapo protesting demands for answers when Uncle Apur required answers for the granary that was depleted because he gave access without regulation. He permitted Anyapo to eat without brakes.

    Because the elders of Abongodero reminded Apur that the roots of accountability are bitter but the fruits are sweet!.

    [End of Episode 2]

  • EPISODE 1: THE LEGEND OF ABONGODERO

    EPISODE 1: THE LEGEND OF ABONGODERO

    Enen Legal World Logo


    There is a village called Abongodero. Abongodero means without a granary.

    The villagers named it after Mzee Zakayo’s ingenuity.

    Zakayo was clever. He never built a granary of his own. Instead, he raised cattle, fat bulls, glossy heifers. When hunger season approached, he would walk to a farmer whose granaries groaned with millet and offer a bull in exchange for rights to a certain number of storehouses. Enough to feed his household. Enough to impress the neighbors.

    The arrangement was sealed with a handshake. Everyone knew Zakayo’s cattle. Everyone knew he paid.

    The villagers admired him.

    “..Look at Zakayo!..”they whispered around evening fires. “He eats from granaries he never built!“

    They admired him so much that they named the village after his ingenuity.

    Abongodero.

    A photo of a granary.  Credit. Uganda Today: from article: A testament to tradition: the art of grain in Uganda’s homesteads by Chris Kato.

    But abundance has a wicked sense of humor.

    Zakayo’s children grew up knowing which families owed them food, which granaries bore their father’s mark. They inherited cattle, but not discipline. They inherited the right to eat, but not the wisdom to plant.

    One of them was Okello Anyapo.

    Anyapo. The lazy one.

    Okello inherited land so fertile it blushed when rain touched it. Black soil. Generous soil. Soil that would have yielded harvests his grandfather never imagined.

    But his hoe remained smooth. His fields grew weeds tall enough to vote.

    When hunger came, Okello blamed the sun for burning too bright. He blamed the rain for falling too hard. He blamed the ancestors for not speaking loudly enough. He blamed everyone except his idle hands.

    Across the stream lived Owera Apur.

    Apur the Farmer.

    He did not give speeches about productivity. He simply woke before the rooster finished its gossip. He dug. He planted. He weeded. He waited. His granary stood behind his hut like a quiet monument to repetition.

    He had no cattle to trade. He had only his back, his hands, and his patience.

    His granary stood full.

    Proof that the land was never the problem.

    Then hunger came like a leopard.

    The families who once owed Zakayo’s children had rebuilt their stores. They no longer needed cattle. They needed their millet for themselves.

    Okello’s inheritance could not be traded for what no one would sell.

    Hunger clawed him thin.

    He crossed the stream.

    “Uncle,” he said. “We are blood. Remember Father Zakayo? The village bears witness to his name.”

    In Lango, dignity comes before shame. Owera sighed. He looked at his granary—full from seasons of sweat.

    He opened the door.

    “Enter,”he said. “Take what you need.”

    Not ownership. Not supervision. Not rules.

    Just access.

    Okello entered empty and emerged round.

    He returned the next day. And the next. Soon he stopped pretending to farm at all.

    Why sweat when sacks yawn open?
    Why ration when no one counts?
    Why plant when the granary door never closes?

    By planting season, Owera opened his store to prepare for the rains.

    It echoed like a drum.

    Empty.

    When confronted, Okello adjusted his waistband and smiled.

    “You allowed me.“
    “There were no rules.“
    “I merely accessed.”

    And that is how Abongodero learned what their ancestors should have known:

    You never send a starving man to the granary.

    [End of Episode 1]

    Stay tuned and on the look out for Episode 2 of the legend of Abongodero. 

  • The Philosophy of Insults: When Truth Becomes Fire and Tests Legitimacy”Enen’s Letter to the Radical New Bar and Every Citizen Who Still Dares to Speak

    The Philosophy of Insults: When Truth Becomes Fire and Tests Legitimacy”Enen’s Letter to the Radical New Bar and Every Citizen Who Still Dares to Speak

    Logo: Enen Legal World


    🪶 The Fable

    Deep within the Mambo Forest, the animal kingdom lived in awe of a single, dazzling truth: their ruler, Twon Gweno the cock, wore a crown of living fire. His comb was a legend, a crest of such vibrant crimson that the elders swore it was a fragment of the first sun. His morning crow was a decree:

    “Bow to my glory, and you will be spared my flame.”

    And so, the animals bowed. Fear made them pious; fear made the cock sovereign with unquestioned loyalty, respect and cooperation from the rest of the animal kingdom in that forest. It was a classic case of natural-born legitimacy; never really earned.

    One evening, a crisis struck. Ichuli, the fox, the sole specialist in lighting the communal fire, was away. The wood was piled, but the spark was missing. The night, cold and predatory, loomed.

    Odyek Odyek, the hyena, a friend to truth and enemy of pretence, stepped forward.

    “The solution is simple,” she said. “We bow to Ladit Twon Gweno’s crown of fire. I will sprint to his home and borrow a spark.”

    She took a tuft of the driest spear grass, the Obia and went to the cock’s compound. She found him in a deep, unconscious slumber. Without waking him, she gently pressed the grass to his legendary crown, waiting for the catch, the sizzle, the proof.

    The grass rested on the crown, as inert as if it had been placed on a cool stone. The legendary fire was a phantom.


    Odyek Odyek, the hyena returned to the gathering and dropped the cold, unburnt grass in the centre of the circle. No words were needed. The lie they had bowed to for generations unravelled in that silent moment.

    Power, and unearned but coerced legitimacy unmasked, bled its authority into the silent night.


    ⚖️ The Lesson

    Borrowed fire must warm the hearts of the people. When it no longer does, the borrower is called to account.


    So it is with the courts. The robe, the gavel, the summons, and the warrant are instruments loaned by the people. Article 126(1) of the Constitution does not sing an ornament; it issues a command:

    Judicial power is derived from the people and shall be exercised by the Courts in their name and in accordance with the law and their values, norms, and aspirations.


    🧱 The Three Pillars of Legitimacy

    Legitimacy; the respect of the people and their cooperation with the courts, is the covenant at the heart of that loan. It demands three sacramental elements:

    Reflection: Judicial power must reflect the values and aspirations of the people; not the insatiable appetite of a sophisticated elite for luxury or high life.

    Truth: Courts must administer justice in accordance with law and truth, not convenience or midnight deals.

    The Judicial Oath: The solemn undertaking before God to do justice to all manner of people without fear, favour, ill will or affection is no actor’s prayer; it is a chain of duty.


    Strip away any of these, and what remains is a gowned pretender, eloquent and majestic, perhaps, but hollow: a cock whose crown no longer burns.


    The Evidence of Decay

    For those who have seen:

    • Appeal files missing thirty-eight pages.

    • A High Court hearing conducted not in a public courtroom but secretly in a posh hotel in which 15 minutes out of those proceedings were conducted in the absence of the opposite party and the whole process bashed by the Court of Appeal for want of a fair hearing and lack of judicial accountability and transparency and thereby further exacerbating the already slim public trust in the Court system entirely

    • A lower bench judicial officer bashed; “I don’t want to see this rubbish here, take it back where it came from” when they had sought guidance over files of thousands of remand detainees who had clocked mandatory bail, over 5 years where the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution state attorneys appeared neither willing nor ready to commit them for trial in the High Court.

    • The poorest peasants completely blocked from accessing justice because the lower courts have received directives not to register and dispose of customary land disputes unless a surveyor had first rendered a preliminary survey report; peasants who have never heard of, met heard about or hired the services of a professional called a surveyor. They have to sell a chunk of land  to afford a surveyor to conduct a preliminary survey and get their case registered.

    • A National Bar Association President’s liberty preserving Application for stay of execution of a manifestly void Contempt of Court ruling take close to 9 months without disposal.  




    These are not footnotes; they are flesh-and-blood indictments.
    The 1995 Constitution’s promise of a speedy and fair hearing has become hot air—Kikwangala, Kichupuli, Kawani.



    🗣️ The Test — The Philosophy of Insults. Withdrawing legitimacy and requiring that it be earned back by fidelity to its 3 pillars.

    “To insult without malice but with evidence is to perform constitutional maintenance and maintain pure legitimacy.”



    Hence the philosophy of insults. This is not the petty malice of a tavern quarrel. It is a civic stress-test, a pressure gauge for legitimacy.

    It is the public’s cry:

    “GIVE US WHAT YOU OWE US.”


    We lent you power; we demand accountability in return.

    A people that cannot insult and mock power has already lost moral authority. The right to insult and offend the powerful is not a luxury, it is the citizen’s tool for testing whether the borrowed flame is real.


    📜 The Proof — The Jurisprudence of Defiance

    “Leaders should grow hard skins to bear.”
    “Power must endure insult to remain clean.”

    Uganda: When the Constitution Answered Back

    This philosophy is not just wisdom; it is the settled weight of law. Consider Andrew Mwenda, whose words rattled the Republic:


    This philosophy is not just wisdom; it is the settled weight of law. Consider Andrew Mwenda, whose words rattled the Republic:
    “You see these African Presidents. This man went to University, why can’t he
    behave like an educated person? Why does he behave like a villager?’

    Museveni can never intimidate me. He can only intimidate himself ……… the
    President is becoming more of a coward and every day importing cars that are
    armor plated and bullet proof and you know moving in tanks and mambas, you
    know hiding with a mountain of soldiers surrounding him, he thinks that, that
    is security. That is not security. That is cowardice”

    Actually Museveni’s days are numbered if he goes on a collision course with
    me.”

    You mismanaged Garang’s Security. Are you saying it is Monitor that caused
    the death of Garang or it is your own mismanagement? Garang’s security was
    put in danger by our own Government putting him first of all on a junk
    helicopter, second at night, third passing through Imatong Hills where Kony
    is ?……Are you aware that your Government killed Garang?”

    I can never withdraw it. Police call them, I would say the Government of
    Uganda, out of incompetence led to or caused the death of Garang”

    When the state reached for iron law and charged him with sedition, the Constitutional Court answered with freedom, declaring that people from all backgrounds enjoy equal rights of expression, polite or not.

    “……Our people express their thoughts differently depending on the environment of their birth, upbringing and education.

    While a child brought up in an elite and God fearing society may know how to address an elder or leader politely, his counterpart brought up in a slum environment may make annoying and impolite comments, honestly believing that, that is how to express him/herself.

    All these different categories of people in our society enjoy equal rights under the Constitution and the law. And they have equal political power of one vote each.Then came the killer line that buried sedition:

    “……During elections voters make very annoying and character assassinating remarks and yet in most cases false, and yet no prosecutions are preferred against them. The reason is because they have a right to criticize their leaders rightly or wrongly. The Court concluded “Leaders should grow hard skins to bear.”
    A copy of the judgment can be found here:

    Mwenda and Another v Attorney General 2010 UGCC 9 (25 August 2010)Download



    Burkina Faso: The Continental Echo

    In Burkina Faso, journalist Issa Konaté was jailed for calling a prosecutor “a criminal in a robe.” In his Words:

    “…….The Prosecutor of Faso is the godfather of bandits. He is the sponsor, the organizer, the leader of a vast network of counterfeiters and traffickers that he protects with his power and status.”
    This is a prosecutor who does not prosecute crime, he commands it. He is not a guardian of order but a godfather of disorder
    While honest citizens sleep in fear, the chief lawman of our nation sits in his office, dividing the spoils of crime with police officers and bankers
    He is not a magistrate; he is a criminal in a robe. A saboteur of justice…….”



    The African Court answered with thunder and reason. Custodial sentences for speech are a bludgeon against Democracy:
    “The Court is of the view that the violations of laws of freedom of speech and the press cannot be sanctioned by custodial sentences, without going contrary to the provisions of Articles 9 and 19 of the Charter”

    The Court pronounced itself on the role of public figures under scrutiny.

    “There is no doubt that a prosecutor is a public figure; as such he is more exposed than an ordinary individual and is subject to many and more severe criticisms. Given that, a higher degree of tolerance is expected of him”

    A copy of the judgment can be found here:

    Konate vs Bukina FasoDownload


    From this we learn that “Power must endure insult to remain clean.”


    🪶 The Heritage; The Lango Grammar of Reproof

    This civic logic is not foreign to us. In Lango, the sharp tongue has long done the work of reform.

    • “Ole yin ibedo dako dako”; “…..you man, you behave womanly…”. It is not cruelty. It is shock therapy for duty and clarion call for the family patriarch to “man up” and live up to his responsibilities to his family, to lead firmly, provide for it and protect it.

    • “Lango mito alek”; “…..Lango deserves a pestle…” A reminder that discipline is coming unless reform comes first and that it intact comes usually after enforced discipline.


    • “Kwany Ka Point” The Gen Z’s and Millenials have similarly curved their own wisdom, “pick only the point”: As plain and simple as that. Pick only the point, filter it from the insult.


    • “Ikok Ugali idogi.”  “…..You will cry with Ugali in your mouth. …”


    In the old rite of passage, a young man’s two upper incisors were pulled, and boiling herbal Ugali was placed in his mouth to ease the agony. He cried through the very remedy meant to heal. Reform rarely feels like mercy.

    So when the citizen mocks the powerful, the intention is not cruelty; it is Ugali in the mouth of power: a necessary sting, a painful antidote.

    The insult becomes a civic anaesthetic; searing, brutally  humiliating, but designed to cleanse and restore legitimacy

    Reform rarely feels like mercy.
    So when the citizen insults and mocks the powerful, the intention is not cruelty. It is Ugali in the mouth of power: a necessary sting, a painful antidote.


    🔥 The Repair — The Calculus of Force

    Public outrage, properly aimed, creates four fields of pressure that make corruption intolerable:

    1. Professional Ostracization: When integrity collapses, the social scaffolding of a career falls with it.


    2. Erosion of Authority: A judge who loses public confidence loses jurisdictional muscle and may in fact receive fewer to zero allocations of files to handle or minimal chances to be chosen to sit on a panel in the case of hearings in courts that are manned by more than one Judicial Officer.


    3. Legal and Institutional Siege: Scandal catalyses petitions, litigation, and oversight that eat at illegitimacy.


    4. Political Abandonment: The appointing power prefers a scapegoat to a scandal, forcing a “voluntary” exit.

    From this, we learn that insults are not instruments of mob rule; they are the social physics of accountability.Yet outrage alone is not reform. The sting must translate into architecture: cooling-off periods for judges, transparent appointments, and independent oversight with teeth. Shame, the direct consequence of insult, reveals the rot; law must excise it.


    ⚔️ The Awakening — The Price of Truth

    “The hyena who taught the village to see.”

    For too long, the Uganda Law Society was a sleeping giant while the temple burned. But the dry grass is now burning in Masaka.
    When the President of the Bar , the hyena who taught the village to see, lives in exile for refusing to apologise for truth, his banishment becomes the ultimate test.

    Isaac K Ssemakadde (SC) President of Uganda Law Society. Credit: Uganda Law Society Website.



    📜 The Counsel; A Call to the Bench and the People

    This is not an invitation to vulgarity for its own sake.
    Insult as a civic weapon must be wielded with evidence, not rumour; with satire steeped in fact, not malice.

    To the Judges:

    Grow the hard skins the Constitutional Court commanded you to have. Wear patience as armour, not menace. Treat insult as a thermometer, not as treason or contempt.

    When a citizen insults, ask: does this insult point to truth? If yes, answer in reason, remedy the wrong, and let the nation watch you Act. If not, let the insult fall like a pebble. The dignity and legitimacy of the bench is earned by magnanimity and the stoic creed of the 3 pillars of legitimacy namely Reflection (of law, values, norms and aspirations); Truth and by abiding by the Judicial Oath. It is not enforced by fury, bullying or jaling dissent.

    This doctrine requires courage from all sides. The Bar must be relentlessly courageous and fearless in its insult and ridicule while exacting in its ethics.

    The public must be loud and literate, hurl insults but bring evidence. Lawyers must translate courage into petitions, not merely WhatsApp gossip and tweets. The Legislature must codify protections for speech against disproportionate criminal sanction and the Judiciary must redicscover the humility of the oath, the most important leg of judicial legitimacy; to do justice without fear, favour, ill will or affection. 

    To

    the citizens: Wield the pen. Make the insult precise devastatingly; threads that link to missing pages, memes that reveal truth.


    🌞 The Benediction & Epilogue

    Lock and Roseau taught and we learnt from the social contract doctrine that all power, judicial power inclusive, like the communal bull, is never owned. It is loaned to serve, not to feast upon. Judicial officers are, therefore, commissioners, agents of the people, not monarchs. The people are the principal. When the agent betrays, the principal must insult loudly in true reprimand.


    If those entrusted with it betray the trust, the people must remind them, sometimes with satire, sometimes with searing words, that borrowed fire must warm, not burn.

    This is neither an incitement to violence nor a call for insurrection. It is a call to civil carnage against corruption, ritualised, and peaceful.

    Let the insults be sharp, witty, and relentless, and let them dismantle rotten cartels of impunity.
    Turn every courtroom cover into a public syllabus: transparent reasons, readable judgments, accountability writ in footnotes and public records.
    Make the institutions bleed truth, not people.

    To end illiteracy in justice, let every citizen wield the pen.

    Let the hyenas come. Let the baraza be noisy.

    Let society test the crown every morning until the judges can point, with open hands and clear reasons, and say:

    “Here is the flame.”

    Until then, press the grass. Let the crown be tried in daylight.
    Let the fire prove itself true.

    ✍️ Dedication

    This blog is dedicated to all prisoners, present and past, of conscience, self-expression, and free speech: Male Mabirizi Kiwanuka, Ivan Samuel Sebadduka J, and Isaac K. Ssemakadde (SC), President of the Uganda Law Society, for executing a civic duty tragically confused with contempt of court.

    Contempt must be reserved for direct obstruction of justice, not as a cudgel to discipline ridicule.
    Imprisoning insult and mockery is to forget the nature and source of judicial power: the people’s consent.

    May the Good Lord bless and protect you all.
    And may we witness, in our lifetime, thick-skinned judicial officers who treat insults with nothing more than “a wry smile,”
    as aptly put twenty-five years ago by the eminent British jurist, Lord Justice Simon Brown.

    The author is a member of the inaugural Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society.

    DISCLAIMER: This Blog is not a call for mob justice, chaos or disorder against our beloved holders of judicial power and other public power, it is brutal and defiant reminder that illegitimate conduct leads to a withdrawal of respect from the very owners of the power and attracts criminal and administrative sanctions, some as grave as removal from office. It is also to encourage the clean and disciplined judicial officers to continue upholding the consent of the people for them to administer justice by upholding the stoic pillars of legitimacy first mentioned in this Blog, and that with or without climbing the career ladder, God, the original designer of justice will be the ultimate one to reward their efforts both now and in the afterlife.

    This blog is not intended to be used as legal advice, and the author denies liability for use of the contents herein as legal advice. Readers are encouraged to consult a licensed Advocate to give them specialised advice and representation.

    For feedbacks and comments: ambrosenen@gmail.com. 

    References.

    For further reading or references. I consulted the following books.

    1. Politics as a Vocation (Politik als Beruf) by Max Weber

    2. Second Treatise of Government” by John Locke.

    3. The Social Contract” (Du contrat social) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

    4. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance” by James C. Scott.

    5. How to Do Things with Words” by J.L. Austin.

  • LET MY LAWYERS GO!, the National Legal Education Center Bill and the Independence Journey of Uganda’s Legal Profession.

    LET MY LAWYERS GO!, the National Legal Education Center Bill and the Independence Journey of Uganda’s Legal Profession.

    In Pharaoh’s Uganda, dreams bleed at the Law Development Centre’s gates. In 2024 alone, over 1,500 aspiring lawyers were barred from the Bar Course—a tenth plague, slaughtering futures.

    “The state’s iron whip chains.    lawyers to bake bricks for tyranny rather than wield shields for the people.”

    To the village Barraza, this is no mere law school tale. It is a war for justice: bills rise, warriors roar. Will the National Legal Examinations Centre Bill 2025 free Uganda’s advocates—or forge fresh shackles?

    The Brickyard of Colonial Chains

    Before independence, the British Pharaoh feared lawyers. In the 1940s, Apollo Milton Obote’s law scholarship was blocked; The British did not want him or someone from Lango to study law at the time. He later championed the struggle for Uganda’s independence alongside other nationalists like I.K Musaazi and Jolly Joe Kiwanuka, among others. The political Independence came in 1962, but lawyers remained baking bricks, facilitating dictatorship rather than defending rights.

    Image: Dr. Apollo Milton Obote. Former Primer Minister and first Executive President of Uganda.

    The 1956 Uganda Law Society,   Act, Cap 305, chained lawyers in Pharaoh’s brick yard, crushing their independence and autonomy by imposing state law officers, the Attorney General and Solicitor their governing council. This effectively led to state capture, aligning the legal profession with the colonial power’s interests instead of advancing the rights of the colonized peoples. The 1970 Advocates Act, Cap 295 further entrenched the chains: the Law Council, chaired by a judge who is appointed by the Attorney General after consultation with the Chief Justice. Other state law officers, the Solicitor General, a Chief Magistrate and only 3 lawyers, their president, and 2 others elected by them, a token of independence. Yet this substantially unelected group of powerful officials controlled eligibility, Bar exams, and disciplinary powers.

    The initial denial of Martha Karua a temporary license by the Ugandan Law Council and the reasons which it gave should tell you my dear reader everything else you need to know about the state of the independence of Uganda’s Legal Profession.

    Read more about it here.

    Reflections of the Uganda Law Council’s Refusal to License Martha Karua by Enen Ambrose at Enen Legal World.

    “Independence and autonomy for the lawyers remained but only a cruel mirage.”


    The Global Commandment: Let My Lawyers Go!

    In 1990, the UN Congress in Havana thundered: the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, echoing Exodus 5:1 “Let my lawyers go!” Principle 24 demanded self-governing, autonomous professional associations.

    The International Bar Association’s Standards echoed this, decreeing in Article 17 that lawyer associations must be independent, their councils freely chosen without state interference. Article 18 makes this crystal clear:

    “The functions of the appropriate lawyers’ association in ensuring the independence of the legal profession shall be inter alia: (h) to promote a high standard of legal education as a prerequisite for entry into the profession and the continuing education of lawyers, and to educate the public regarding the role of a Lawyers’ Association.”

    Again, to the village Barraza, let me break this down into what my “A” Level economics teacher, Mr. Stanley Lukera, taught us, the “grandmother’s approach”: the Uganda Law Society, whose leaders are elected by the members, the lawyers themselves, must be the body responsible for setting academic standards for entry into the legal profession. That means setting and/or advocating for high-quality law school curricula, Bar exam requirements, or other qualifications before one can serve as an advocate.

    Yet Uganda’s Pharaoh only sneered. The Law Council and ULS Act stood firm, chaining lawyers to state whims. The village Barraza waited for defenders, but lawyers, bound by Pharaoh’s overseers, could not rise.

    The People’s Covenant Ignored

    In 1995, Uganda’s people, the ultimate consumers of justice, struck a covenant in their Constitution. National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, Paragraphs II(vi) and V(ii)  XX declared that non-governmental bodies like the Uganda Law Society (ULS) must retain autonomy to champion human rights, their independence guaranteed by the state. Five years after the UN and IBA commandments, the people demanded their lawyers be freed to hold power accountable, to defend Mityana widows from land grabs, Soroti youths from unjust arrests, Mbale vendors from cheating landlords.

    But Pharaoh’s heart hardened, as in Exodus 8:15. The state clutched the legal profession tighter, wielding the Law Development Centre (LDC) as its slave-pit. With nearly 20 universities churning out law graduates, LDC remained the sole gatekeeper of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, its infrastructure crumbling under the weight. Pre-entry exams, meant to manage capacity, became another lash, while quality control at universities was a paper tiger.

    Plagues of the Slave-Pit

    The LDC’s tyranny rained plagues on aspiring lawyers, not the state. Failure rates soared to 90% in 2021 and several other years. Dreams shattered like stolen straw. Sex-for-marks scandals led to the expulsion of Academic Registrar Everest Turyakihayo, in 2022; a stain on justice’s robe.

    Supplementary exam fees bled students, parents, guardians, spouses, boyfriends, and sugar daddies dry in millions of shillings for a second chance at Pharaoh’s mercy. Then came the tenth plague, the killing blow: in 2024, LDC barred over 1,500 qualified applicants from the Bar Course, admitting only 1,260 of 2,600, citing “limited resources”. Like the death of Egypt’s firstborn in Exodus 11:1-10, this was no mere setback; it was a massacre of futures, a cry that pierced the heavens.

    Yet some struck back. In 2017, Gulu and Cavendish graduates denied exams thumpchested and invited  Pharaoh to the wrestling ring in Asiimwe Alex Byaruhanga & 12 Ors v Law Council & 3 Ors. Justice Wolayo thundered:

    “Law Council’s block was arbitrary and irrational.”

    The court quashed the ban, imposed permanent injunctions, and awarded 20 million UGX each. This blog is dedicated to among others, these courageous lawyers who walked through Pharaoh’s furnace and are now fine practicing Advocates.

    Even public figures were not spared: Kyagulanyi Robert Ssentamu Alias Bobi Wine’s Cavendish University degree faced state scrutiny pre-graduation, proof Pharaoh’s heart hardens even against the popular. The musician turned leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP), Uganda’s largest opposition political party told members of the press shortly after his graduation that “When news came out that I was set to graduate, the usual detractors got busy and made every effort to stop me,” he said. “Some people, ostensibly working for the regime and other detractors, went as far as petitioning the National Council for Higher Education.” He added “NCHE officials went to the University and demanded for every document regarding my studies… It was a very detailed and intense investigation,


    Pharaoh’s Whip extends beyond Law, it bites real flesh.

    Pharaoh’s tyranny isn’t just legislative—it’s flesh and blood. At the 20th #RNBLive Series, Yours truly had the lived experience of delivering the speech of the ULS President Isaac K. Ssemakadde’s speech. A copy of that speech is attached and A video of it is also attached. The modern Aaron, spoke fire:

    “Advocate Abed Nasser Mudyobole… forcibly disappeared by state security. His abduction echoes the tyranny that hunted Njuba, Kayondo, Sebutozi, Ayigihugu. Lawyers who defend the Constitution, who question power, are enemies to be silenced.”

    Author delivering the speech of the ULS President Isaac K.  Ssemakadde on 29th May 2025 at the ULS House, Kampala.


    The courts shackle ULS blocking meetings (Kirima v ULS, 2024), Halting lawyers Constitutional voices at the Judicial Service Commission with appeals arising thereform under perpetual abeyance decisions (Mugisha v ULS), sentencing ULS President Isaac Ssemakadde in February, 2025 for criticizing a judge.


    Bakampa: Vision for Job-Ready Lawyers

    From LDC’s ashes rose Bakampa Brian Baryaguma. His Legal Education and Training Bill 2024:

    Decentralizes Bar training to universities

    Infuses practical skills: drafting, moots, clerkship

    Mandates one-year pupillage and national Bar exam

    Repeals the LDC Act

    “No more paying twice for one loaf. Lawyers ready to defend the people.”

    National Legal Examinations Centre Bill 2025: Red Sea or New Shackles?

    ULS President Isaac K. Ssemakadde, mirroring Moses and Aaron, long campaigned against LDC. He demanded that it be abolished way back in 2021 in his address to Law Students at Makerere University. In what appeared to be a fit of rage, LDC reacted by blocking Ssemakadde  on its X handle.

    When news broke out that Cabinet had drafted the National Legal Examinations Centre Bill, 2025, the Radical New Bar President asked on whether LDC will unblock him?

    Image: Isaac K. Ssemakadde asked if LDC would unblock him after the bill proposing its abolition as he had suggested was made public by the Solicitor General.  Credit, Isaac Ssemakadde’s X (formerly Twitter handle)

    The bill proposes to free the Post Graduate Bar Diploma in Legal Practice from LDC, and shut it down completely, but Pharaoh’s hand still grips:

    Attorney General, a cabinet minister and political appointee, appoints Director of the center on the recommendation of the governing council & the  chairperson of the governing Council itself (Clauses 17 and 8 respectively). This erodes the corporate governance principles in Clause 19 of the Bill.

    The Attorney General can remove council members, set rules, and determine fees for services of the centre

    The risk of elite and exclusionary political capture remains real. The ghosts of exorbitant fees, especially supplementary Examinations which sucked all stakeholders dry, should not be allowed to lurk after abolition of LDC.


    “The legal profession stands at the Red Sea. Will it walk through freely or be recaptured?”

    Call to Arms: Strike the Red Sea!

    To defend justice, rights, and the Rule of Law, the following MUST BE DONE NOW to prevent lawyers from being captured and tamed “young” and moulded into frightened cowards who cannot foster accountability.

    1. Let the ULS Command– ULS and not a state law officer should appoint the NLEC Director & Council.


    2. Skills Fuse – Bakampa’s model in university curricula: drafting, moots, clerkship. The doctors and engineers have proven that you don’t need to pay twice for the same loaf.


    3. Fees Free;  The Council should retain a higher autonomy to set fees and, in collaboration with ULS, set academic and examination criteria and standards

    A group of lawyers trained through fear, intimidation, and heavy involvement of state law officers loses the courage to fight for the Mityana widows, Soroti youths, and Mbale vendors: lawyers must rise bravely and fearlessly. The rule of law suffers gravely, and so does the effective functioning of the justice system as a whole. 

    Strike the Red Sea! Free ULS!  #LetMyLawyersGo

    “Pharaoh may harden his heart, but justice and truth can’t be enslaved forever.”

    You, dear reader, should participate heavily in freeing your rights defenders, call up the big people you know, Your area member of parliament, your Dean, faculty of Law, your ULS region’s Council member and demand that “they strike the Red Sea” and implement these recommendations so that your rights defenders, the lawyers gain full autonomy and independence.

    #Strike the Red Sea!

    #Let My Lawyers Go!

    This Blog is dedicated to the fearless champions of a better legal education and a better legal practice regulation in Uganda. Bakampa Brian Baryaguma,  the author of the Legal Education and Training Bill who personally granted me the copyrights to quote his works extensively. His journey in the struggle has been chronicle by him on his personal Blog at https://huntedthinker.blogspot.com/https://huntedthinker.blogspot.com/?m=1. I strongly encourage readers to visit his Blog and support his rallying call for members of the Public to contribute views on his bill which is attached:

    Legal Education and Training Bill, 2024 – Draft 3Download

    as well as the version presented by the cabinet, which is attached below:

    THE NATIONAL LEGAL EXAMINATIONS BILL, 2025 (1)Download

    President of Uganda Law Society, Isaac K. Ssemakadde for prophesying the eventual shut down of LDC,  being blocked by the same institution on X (formerly twitter), expelling the Attorney General and Solicitor General from the governing council of the ULS via RNB Executive Order No. 1 of 2024 and earlier on filing a Constitutional Petition, which canvases the international law framework that has been presented and is still pending judgment by the Constitutional Court. My personal prayers are with you as you endure the pain of self exile for tackling the challenges of the legal profession from the root cause. May the good Lord protect you and touch the justices of the Constitutional Court for a just decision.

    This blog is further dedicated to the lawyers who engaged the legal system in the journey to reform the legal system, namely Pius Nuwagaba, Asiimwe Alex Byaruhanga, and his 12 colleagues for challenging the Law Council head on. Your struggles curated this milestone and led the legal profession, especially intending Advocates to now arrive at the Red Sea, waiting to strike the waters to open up the sea, to cross and permanently ensure the independence and full autonomy of the Legal Profession.

    Finally, each and every lawyer, member of the public who added embers to the revolutionary fire to free the legal profession,  parents, Judges who rendered justice,  you all stood on the right side of history,  may God bless you.

    Enen Ambrose, the author, is an Advocate and member of the inaugural Judicial Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society.

    DISCLAIMERS!

    This blog is intended to spark discussions around the current National Legal Education Centre Bill 2025. References to individuals and institutions are based on publicly reported developments and not meant to attack individuals or institutions mentioned directly.

    Nothing in this Blog is intended for use as legal advice. Author accepts no liability for use of the contents herein as legal advice. Readers are advised to seek the services of a licensed Advocate for situation specific legal advice.

    For comments and feedback, reach to us at ambrosenen@gmail.com

  • ULS and UPC Under Siege: How Ssemakadde and Akena Are Battling the Slow Poison of Capture

    ULS and UPC Under Siege: How Ssemakadde and Akena Are Battling the Slow Poison of Capture


    Dusk cloaks a Ugandan village, the stew pot simmering under a mango tree, its steam weaving kin. Semaka, iron-fisted head of the home, strides in, his name a tremor, his spoon, greedy as a warlord’s blade, clinks against the pot, counting the meat, each jab a betrayal of trust. Jucupanti, rooted like a termite hill, stands as justice, her eyes kind yet fierce, her heart a scale balancing truth, her serenity Uganda’s beating root. Semaka’s meddling scars her, but her sons, barefoot, smoke-eyed fists like granite, rise to thrash the tyrant defiling their mother’s pot.

    Jimmy James Micheal Akena, Isaac Ssemakadde, and Denis Enap


    This is Uganda’s fight. The state is Semaka, its institutions, the pot, autonomy, the meat. Every clink is a power grab, every glance a wound to democracy’s soul. The sons, Uganda Law Society (ULS), Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), the people, are its watchdogs, their fury blazing in courtrooms, civil society, public town halls and digital shadows. Institutional autonomy, the heart of democracy, pulses in their defiance, guarding Jucupanti’s pot against Semaka’s claw.


    A Kampala courtroom crackles with treachery. Semaka’s chopping sticks yanked four critical ULS appeals from the Court of Appeal’s cause list for 10th July 2025. Semaka’s style and chopping sticks have no respect for decisional autonomy of the empanelled coram designated to hear those very appeals and the fact that causelisting them was already a Judicial Act which could not be reversed in a casual manner, administratively.

    The affected Appeals were:

    1. Civil Appeal No. 98 of 2025 ULS & Anor v Mugisha Hashim & 2 Ors.,

    2. Civil Appeal No. 99 of 2025 ULS & Anor v Phoena Nabasa Wall,

    3. Civil Appeal No. 102 of 2025 Isaac Ssemakadde v Mugisha Hashim, and;

    4. Civil Appeal No. 111 of 2025 ULS v Brian Kirima—chaining ULS’s nomination to the Judicial Service Commission, its President Isaac Ssemakadde’s liberty, and its democratic governance. On June 30, 2025, the Registrar de-cause-listed these appeals, citing non-mandatory conferencing, followed by indefinite delays on July 3. On July 7, the Deputy Chief Justice admitted directing the move, cloaking it in Article 21(1)’s equality while alleging baseless lobbying by ULS and prioritizing decade-old appeals. This is judicial capture—Semaka’s spoon stealing the meat, shielding Hon. Justice Musa Ssekaana’s rulings (himself now a Justice of Appeal) and defying Articles 28(1) (fair hearing), 128(1)-(2) (judicial independence), and 126(1) (public interest). The cases of the State of Utta Pradesh vs. Anup Singh and  Carltona Ltd vs Commissioner of Works [1943]2 ALLER  560 all stand shoulder to shoulder with the Uganda Law Society, buttressing its push back to protest the decause lisitng of the ULS Appeals as an erosion of the decisional autonomy and independence of the three justices before whom the appeals were scheduled to be heard. Of course, the ULS stood unbowed in its fight to yank Semaka’s schemes.

    What followed was three days of digital town halls on X, hosted by Alfred Muyaka, ULS Head of Communications Adam Nuwamanya, and the indomitable Leonard Egesa slamming the Judiciary for institutional capture of the ULS. The stakes were so high. In between the spaces were frantic legal and diplomatic efforts to restore the ULS Appeals to the cause list and when it became clear that the Deputy Chief Justice had refused to relent as he had earlier communicated, the ULS hurled, like a rocket launcher, an official boycott of the Hon. Chief Justice, Alfonse Owiny-Dollo’s thanksgiving prayer and feast in Patongo, Agago District.

    Ssemakadde’s voice, sharp as a spear, carved 17 truths, three of which yours truly brings to you in surmised form from The Observer (July 23, 2025): Patongo’s gifts—Shs 5m from an acting judge, Shs 3m from the Principal Judge—spit on the Leadership Code Act’s Shs 200,000 cap, (Sections 12(3) with a duty to report gifts in excess of the threshold to the Inspector General of Government (Section 12(4) and a duty to deposit the excess into the Consolidated fund, (Section 12(7))breeding corruption’s rot. The NRM National chairperson’s triumphalist presence (President Yoweri Tibahaburwa Museveni) while throwing jibes at the Democratic Party’s President and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Hon Nobert Mao for the destruction of the Democratic Party  and cloaked in secret donations, risks political capture, defying judicial neutrality (Principles 2.2, 4.4, 4.6, Judicial Conduct Code). The tax-fueled feast mocked Ugandans begging for justice in crumbling courts, crowning the judiciary elitist, not just.

    Ssemakadde’s roar is a son’s fist for Jucupanti’s honor, a war cry to seize the judiciary’s soul.
    The cry drifts to Kampala’s heart, where Uganda House, relic of Obote’s dreams, hums with defiance. Jimmy Akena, heir to that fire, sits, his face lit by a laptop’s glow. On July 26, 2025, police churn Kamdini’s dust, chasing a UPC National Delegates Conference that’s a ghost. The day before, Semaka’s shadow, wielding external forces bent on judicial capture, snatched an ex parte interim order—Joseph Pinytek Ochieno v Uganda People’s Congress and Jimmy Akena (Miscellaneous Application, unreported, 2025)—to halt it. Signed on a Saturday, it’s a phantom—ECCMIS, Uganda’s Electronic Court Case Management system, sleeps on weekends, servers dark as Technicians do routine maintenance, the interim order therefore unserved, a chief’s shout lost to the wind. Akena’s smirk splits the silence, fingers dancing on keys. In a Zoom call, ablaze with democratic will, 700 plus  delegates, from all corners of the Country, UPC’s supreme organ, log in, screens flickering defiance. Three bolts forge their triumph: the Constitution bends, rewriting power; presidential term limits vanish, freeing Akena; a 12-month extension seals his reign to lead a peaceful handover. The delegates suspend the three-month notice with a nod, asserting their autonomy over external shackles like the Denis Adim Enap v Uganda People’s Congress and Hon. Jimmy James Michael Akena (Miscellaneous Cause No. 148 of 2025) ruling, which sought to bury Akena’s presidency. Kamdini’s police find silence, a perfect decoy of the Sandhurst trained political strategist; the war burns on screens. Semaka’s paper tiger falls to UPC’s democratic lion.
    For the village bars and barazas: an unserved order is a shout in a storm—dead on the wind. UPC’s digital triumph, a son’s jab at Semaka, reclaims the meat for the party’s heart, outwitting NRM’s fear of Akena on the 2026 ballot. Courts may growl, but the delegates’ will, the soul of institutional autonomy, hums by every fire.
    That triumph’s shadow slithers to the NRM’s war rooms, where fear flickers like a dying lamp. A secret survey sears: Akena, the Northern spark, threatens their presidential dreams, needing more than 50% of the valid votes cast, as Uganda’s 1995 Constitution, Article 103(1), demands. The National Unity Platform’s Kyagulanyi Robert Ssentamu, the Fire Base Edutainment Ghetto Gladiator tunred politician,  popularly known by his stage name, Bobi Wine, locks Central and Eastern Uganda, as well as huge swathes of the Northern youth vote itself, forging a three-way clash: Museveni, Kyagulanyi, Akena. Jucupanti’s scales, the Constitution, gleam in the fray. Akena, ghost of Milton Obote’s legacy, kindles a Northern flame for a lost dawn. The Ochieno order was a desperate swipe by Semaka’s external forces to snuff it, fearing UPC’s best shot at state power. Semaka’s spoon clinks, seizing ULS cases, chasing UPC’s ghosts, clawing autonomy. But the sons—ULS, UPC, the civil society, and the people—stand fierce, eyes blazing for Jucupanti’s pot. The state’s tyranny weaves a noose, deaf to the Constitution’s call for fairness. The sons are done waiting.
    The fight surges to a village square, dusk heavy, the stew pot steaming. Semaka looms, his spoon a blade, scarring the soul. Jucupanti, justice’s heart, stands serene—eyes fierce, heart a scale, roots deep. Her sons, lion-hearted, rise like a savanna storm. The square pulses as ULS, UPC, the people charge, fists forged in ancestral fire. Semaka falls, his spoon shattering, the meat saved. Jucupanti’s smile is a sunrise, her pride a hearth’s glow. Semaka, humbled, bows, the family’s honour reborn. The pot is shared; trust the broth, freedom the spice, every Ugandan one. This is their democracy, Uganda’s heart, fierce with its watchdogs.
    UPC lit the way. Akena’s digital triumph, driven by the delegates’ supreme will, turned a court order to ash, saving the meat as Kamdini’s police chased ghosts, they brainlessly walked into the decoy. ULS, choked by lies, roars on. Ssemakadde, Jucupanti’s son, thunders on X, defying Patongo’s empty festivities. Lawyers, armed with truth and swagger, are poised to storm the gate, their constitutional petition challenging the de-cause-listing as judicial capture. If UPC’s delegates broke Semaka’s chains, ULS can crush his blade. The call blazes: ULS, all civil society, and the people wield the Constitution like a spear. Charge for Jucupanti’s pot, forge a nation free of shame. Autonomy thunders, and your triumph will light Uganda’s soul.

    DISCLAIMER!

    The views expressed in this Blog are public commentaries to spark crucial debates for reform. It is not intended to attack or ridicule personalities mentioned in it.

    The contents of this blog do not constitute legal advice.  Readers are encouraged to consult a licensed attorney for situation specific legal advice. The author accepts no responsibility for any harm, legal,  financial, or otherwise arising from the use of information in this blog as legal advice

    About:

    Enen Ambrose, the author of this Blog is a rule of law enthusiast and a member of the inaugural Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society. 

  • Dr. Solo vs The Feminist Furies: How One Tweet Cut Through Fibroids, Free Speech, and Misogyny

    Dr. Solo vs The Feminist Furies: How One Tweet Cut Through Fibroids, Free Speech, and Misogyny

    When Dr. Solomon Kimera logged onto Twitter that morning, stethoscope probably still warm from ward rounds, he didn’t just post—he detonated.

    One tweet about fibroids. Another swipe at tight pants and infertility. That was all it took.

    Credit: Dr. Solomon Kimera’s X(formerly Twitter) post on his handle.


    Boom.

    Searches for “fibroids” surged. Men quietly retired their skinny jeans. Women hit the group chats first, then stormed clinics, fists full of questions. The Uganda Medical Council blinked. Then it panicked.

    The backlash was volcanic. Petitions. Think-pieces. Firestorms of quote tweets yelling “misogyny!” and “strip his license!”

    But something strange was happening in the noise. Beneath the outrage, something cracked open.

    Because if Uganda starts policing how doctors speak—even when they sound like trolls—it’s not just Dr. Solo’s voice on the line. It’s the Constitution’s, too.

    Uganda’s Article 29(1)(a) wasn’t crafted to protect polished speeches in well-lit auditoriums. It’s there for the street fights. For the blunders. For the provocateurs.

    Back in 2004, Charles Onyango-Obbo v. Attorney General reminded us that true freedom of expression includes the right to shock, offend, and disturb.

    You can access a copy of that judgment here:

    charles-onyango-obbo-and-anor-v-attorney-general-2004-ugsc-1-10-february-201Download

    Not just the right to say things people agree with—but the right to spark discomfort.

    By that measure, Dr. Solo’s tweet wasn’t just protected—it was a public health campaign. It was a major public health intervention that no health ministry, world over has achieved with the highest budgetary  allocation and human personnel muscle can achieve.  It least, judging from history.

    Credit: Dr. Solomon Kimera alias Dr. Solo’s X (formerly Twitter) post, which indicted a massive success of his radical method of delivery health concerns.


    Still, legal protection doesn’t mean emotional immunity. Especially not for the women silently bleeding through extra pads at work, miscarrying dreams they never told anyone about, misdiagnosed by doctors who didn’t bother to look deeper.

    So yes, his tone was brutal. Clinical. Even smug. But for some, it was the first time fibroids had been acknowledged in public—not as a whisper, but as a national scream.

    Because before this, fibroids were the disease of euphemisms.

    Just “that pain.” Just “heavy flow.” Just something women dealt with.

    And then one loud, reckless doctor barged into the room with no filter and said what nobody else would.

    Ugly, yes. But effective.

    That kind of disruption—messy, jarring, necessary—is often where real change begins. Hell yes. Hippocrati’s oath binds doctor to treat you, save your life. That’s granted. The oath doesn’t bind the medics to decorum per se.

    True feminism doesn’t need everyone to speak gently. It needs people to speak honestly. And if we start silencing dissent because it doesn’t sound like a TED Talk, we’re just building a quieter version of the same old oppression.

    Doctors aren’t priests. They’re not politicians. They shouldn’t be expected to sugarcoat clinical truth just to stay “professional.”

    If polite pamphlets and decroum protocols worked, fibroids wouldn’t still be Uganda’s shadow epidemic—affecting nearly 20% women, many of them untreated, misdiagnosed, or dismissed.

    To verify these figures,  at least for the Ugandan context, read here

    This isn’t about defending one man’s ego. It’s about defending the right to say uncomfortable things that might save lives.

    So maybe instead of cancelling Dr. Solo, we do something harder.

    We ask: Why did this tweet land so hard? Why aren’t women being listened to unless someone shocks us into hearing them?

    Then we turn that chaos into something real:
    – Fund public education.
    – Train doctors to listen, not just lecture.
    – Create space where pain isn’t minimized by decency codes.

    We don’t need fewer voices. We need louder ones—with better tools, better data, and better empathy.

    One rogue tweet woke up a country. Imagine what a thousand coordinated voices could do.

    Maybe he was reckless. Maybe he was rude. But maybe, just maybe, he struck a nerve we’d been ignoring too long.

    Say what you want about the man. Just don’t pretend this didn’t matter.

    Fibroids are finally on the national radar. And it took a troll doctor with Twitter fingers to get us there.

    The author is a Rule of law enthusiast,  a practicing Advocate in Ugandan Courts of Judicature, a free speech Advocate and a member of the inaugural Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society.

    Disclaimer: The author does not endorse or encourage misogyny and other forms of violation of women’s rights.  The views expressed here are purely to spark public discourse and public health awareness drives for the greater good of the whole society,  women inclusive.

    The Blog is for purely public discourse and is not intended to serve as a substitute for professional legal advice.

    Readers are strongly encouraged to seek the services of professional legal personal for situation specific advice. No liability is accepted for harm that arises from using information contained in this Blog as a substitute for professional legal advice.

    Do you have comments or feedback for us, please leave them in the comment section or reach out to us at: ambrosenen@gmail.com  | 256 789856805

  • Uganda Needs Judges with Balls of Titanium Alloy—Not the Shackles of the JSC Regulations, 2025: Why You Should Be Worried

    Uganda Needs Judges with Balls of Titanium Alloy—Not the Shackles of the JSC Regulations, 2025: Why You Should Be Worried


    Let’s not waste time.
    Uganda’s judiciary has been hijacked. Quietly. Legally. Treacherously.

    They didn’t need a coup d’état. They just needed Statutory Instrument No. 4 of 2025—the Judicial Service Commission Regulations—to pass unchallenged.

    You can access a copy of those regulations here:

    JUDICIAL SERVICE COMISSION-04152025211719_250416_194252-compressedDownload



    And now the Constitution isn’t bleeding.

    It’s on life support. Plugged into a system designed to kill it slowly.

    Judges on Acting Terms. Courts on Probation. Justice on the Brink.



    Here’s what they’ve done:

    Invented a system where new judges are appointed on in an acting capacity, with the duration determined at the whims of the appointing authority—yes, like interns at a mobile money kiosk.

    Given the President the power to recycle retired judges, no questions asked. No medical. No mental. No morals.

    Created performance evaluations for judges like they’re applying for a promotion at a law firm.

    That’s right, you’re not day dreaming, the system was rigged. In 2022, the Constitutional Court damned this shrewd “sharp practice” and threw it in our Constitutional History by declaring it unconstitutional in Dr. Busingye Kabumba and Karamagi vs Attorney General.

    A copy of that decision can be found here:

    Kabumba and Another v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition No 15 of 2022) 2022 UGCC 8 (7 December 2022)Download

    Good judgment, right? Damn, the government rigged it. It instead created a legal loophole which enabled it to pass these damned Regulations. 

    Firstly, it appealed against.  Secondly  the government obtained what is in effect  a suspension of the independence of the Judiciary as the Supreme Court delays to decide the Government’s Appeal .

    A copy of the decision which suspended the independence of High Court Judges as the government waits for a decision in its own appeal from the above case can be accessed from here:

    Attorney General v Kabumba Another (Constitutional Application 16 of 2022) 2023 UGCC 117 (6 June 2023)Download


    Okay, let’s dive into the evil in the Regulations.
    Reg. 29–33 and 31 are the smoking guns.
    And what they shoot is judicial independence—straight between the eyes.

    And Then There’s 2026…

    Uganda’s next elections are not just around the corner—they’re rumbling like thunder.

    And we know the script:

    Mass arrests.

    Disappearances.

    Violent suppression.

    Habeas corpus applications flying like confetti.

    Human rights cases lined up like a firing squad.


    It will take judges to hear them all.

    But what kind of judges?

    Not fearless ones. Not permanent ones. Not independent ones.

    The Regulations guarantee this:

    When the state comes for you, the judge before you may still be “acting,” “probationary,” or “awaiting confirmation.”

    You don’t need a judge praying for job security.

    You need a judge with balls forged from titanium alloy, ready to grab the State by its ball sac and say:

    “Back off. The Constitution says this citizen walks free.”

    These Regulations can’t produce that judge.
    They produce whispering cowards in robes.

    But Wait, There’s a Recruitment Cartel Too

    They didn’t just kill judicial independence at the appointment level.

    They also built a Search and Recruitment Committee—and a Sub-Committee—with a quorum of TWO people.

    Let that sink in:
    Two people can now shortlist Uganda’s judges.

    Who are these people?

    The Attorney General—yes, the government’s own lawyer.

    The Chairperson of the JSC—currently Justice Singiza, who was once branded a “Nazi Judge” by opposition supporters for adjourning Besigye’s habeas corpus case instead of hearing it urgently.


    And guess who they kicked out of this process?

    The two (2) representatives of the Uganda Law Society.

    The very people the Constitution says should be part of the Judicial Service Commission.

    It Was Planned. Timed. Executed.

    These Regulations were passed while the Uganda Law Society is in court, fighting to elect its representatives.

    The plan is clear:
    Keep them out. Lock the process down. Staff the courts with friendly judges. Control the law from the inside out.

    This isn’t just bad law.

    It’s a judicial cartel in robes.

    And You Think It Doesn’t Affect You?

    Wait until your land is taken.
    Wait until your protest turns into a prison sentence.
    Wait until your loved one disappears.
    Wait until the courtroom is the only place left to cry out.

    Then you’ll pray that your judge isn’t still auditioning for a contract renewal.

    Here’s the Message:

    Uganda’s justice system is being rebuilt—not to protect you, but to survive you.

    It is no longer about law.
    It’s about control.
    It’s about loyalty.
    It’s about silencing justice before you can even plead for it.

    This is the war. This is the moment. This is the alarm.

    If you have eyes you better see, and if you have ears you better listen.

    More about me and disclaimer in the about page.