By Mulengera Reporters
Isaac K Ssemakadde is currently considered to be a man in exile especially by those who know what awaits him; having been established to be a contemnor against whom both the conviction and sentencing have long been proclaimed.
He was found guilty of contempt of court-related charges by then head Civil Division of the High Court Justice Musa Ssekaana. But the judgment and sentencing was proclaimed when Ssemakadde (who recently told CBS how he would receive a Seya-like hero’s welcome in Kampala the day he returns to Uganda) was out of the country and this has remained the case.
He says he isn’t worried about Ssekaana and that he will be back in the country once he is done doing the ULS business abroad. Ssekaana decreed that he serves two years in prison and this seems to be the course Ssemakadde is headed for unless he doesn’t return to Uganda.
Prisons sources say that it’s being considered by people in authority to have him caged in Moroto or any other remoter place in Karamoja where he could end up spending his two years of imprisonment. It’s expected that this sort of isolation will cow him to the extent that by the time he comes out, he will be totally a changed man.
The other option would be for Ssemakadde to appeal to Court of Appeal where Ssekaana was recently promoted to. The challenge here is that not many judges would be keen being part of the panel to look into that appeal for fear to offend the mighty and the powerful Ssemakadde is supposed to have rubbed the wrong way.
Even those willing to take up such an assignment will be very unlikely not to affirm the conclusion that was reached upon by their colleague Ssekaana because the truth is that, in his activism, Isaac Ssemakadde has taken no prisoners and in the process gone after many judicial officers.
The other painful truth is that the state has plans to dilute and deflate ULS in order to cow and do away with the militancy and radicalism Ssemakadde had fermented as ULS President. There is determination to sideline and render the ULS less relevant in order to demonstrate to the world that becoming ULS President didn’t make Isaac Ssemakadde indispensable the way thousands of his supporters thought.
For instance, the Justice Douglas Singiza-led JSC is likely to carry on with business without ULS representatives and this will enable his tormentors to demonstrate that not all that Ssemakadde (who was vocally demanding for reforms in the way business is conducted at JSC) was crusading and very outspoken about was that important.
A subdued Uganda Law Society will end up sending representatives and electing to office leaders who are well aligned with the state’s priorities unlike the Ssemakadde type who found it very fashionable to be belligerently anti-authority.
Once the other younger militants, who were deriving inspiration from Ssemakadde’s radicalism, have been cowed, the remainder of ULS will predictably surrender so that the Law Society also becomes a captured institution as has befallen many other once potent, assertive and public-spirited public institutions of Uganda. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
