Uganda

Mar
18
2020

Judicial independence infringed when Uganda's Chief Justice has to 'plead' for funds - constitutional court

By Carmel Rickard

Uganda’s constitutional court has found that the independence of the country’s judiciary is in jeopardy because of the way the budget of this arm of government is handled. In one of its most significant decisions under the present constitution, the court said the system made the judiciary very much the junior branch in the three arms of government, and often reduced the Chief Justice ‘to pleading for funds from the executive’.

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In this landmark case the Uganda law society made an alarming claim: the country’s executive and legislature had failed to help the judicial arm of government take its rightful place under the constitution. In doing so, they undermined the independence of the judiciary.

Mar
16
2023

Unconstitutional for Uganda’s tax authority to demand banks supply sensitive information on every single client

By Carmel Rickard

In March 2018, the Commissioner General of the Ugandan Revenue Authority (URA) sent notices to Uganda’s banks requiring them to supply key information about every single client. The banks in turn challenged whether this move was lawful, and the country’s constitutional court has now declared that it was not.

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The list of petitioners in this case is long and startling: it was brought by 29 banks, Uganda’s development bank and the umbrella body for Uganda’s banks. Their petition dealt with several issues, but the central legal fight concerned a series of notices sent to the banks by the Commissioner General (CG) of the Ugandan Revenue Authority (URA).

Jan
12
2023

Free speech gets a huge boost in Uganda

By Carmel Rickard

A key freedom of expression law, used in Uganda to arrest, detain and hamper the work of journalists, along with other writers and political activists, has been declared unconstitutional by that country’s constitutional court. Five judges held that the law, dealing with ‘computer misuse’, imposed curbs that were incompatible with the constitution. The court said that prosecuting people for the content of their communication amounted to a violation of what ‘falls within guarantees of freedom of expression in a democratic society’.

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In a decision likely to have an enormous impact on freedom of expression in Uganda as well as on constitutionalism in that country more generally, five judges have held a key section of a pervasive law on ‘computer misuse’ to be invalid.

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