Team Judiciary: What happened to you?

By Mwanje Gideon

 The image still flashes over my eyes and is so painful: two young children, small and innocent, standing over a fresh grave. They were burying their mother, a woman who had finally lost her grueling battle with cancer. But as the soil fell upon the casket, the most unbearable part of the scene was the void beside them.

Although mourners stood by them. They were alone. Their father was not there to hold their hands or offer a final prayer to their beloved mother.

He wasn’t missing by choice. He was sitting in a prison cell, held on an obscure, minor, and unproven charge in a subordinate court. His alleged offense involved no threat to life, no injury to limb, and no damage to property.  He remained trapped in pre-trial custody, denied bail long past the time the Constitution; our supreme law permits.

It was this refrigerating disregard for human dignity that prompted a stinging cry for accountability from the bench. Justice Egonda-Ntende recently posed a question that should rattle the windows of every court in this land: “Team Judiciary, where are your Kityos and Wambuzis at this hour?”

There was a time when the Ugandan Judiciary was the flickering candle in a very dark room. It was the only shield the public had against an uncensored Executive, a cold arm of government that stops at nothing to protect its supremacy.

We remember the giants. We remember the intellectual courage of Justice Samuel Wambuzi and the unwavering principles of Justice George Kanyeihamba. The judges like Joseph Kakooza who even retired in the early 70s for not wanting to be part of Amin’s brutal regime. We recall the integrity of Justice Bart Katureebe, who once remarked that he could never write a judgment so flawed that a student at the Law Development Centre (LDC) would read it and wonder what happened to his mind. These were men who understood that a judge’s legacy isn’t written in political favors, but in the enduring logic of justice.

Where is that spirit today? Where are the Justice Madramas or the Justice Kisakyes—the latter now pushed into the cold of exile? Today, we don’t find hope in the corridors of justice; we find a “judicialization of politics.” We see opposition figures rotting in cells without clear charges, their liberty sacrificed on the altar of political convenience.

The “Lady of Justice” is depicted with a blindfold to show she is impartial. But in Uganda, it seems the blindfold has slipped. She has closed her eyes to the law only to open her ears to “orders from above.”

Article 128 of our Constitution is filled with beautiful, hopeful words about judicial independence. The truth  for the common man watching the news, those words ring hollow. We see judicial officers many of whom belong to Christian associations and profess high moral values practicing a “preach” they do not live by.

When a judge feels answerable to political power rather than the law, they become more than just biased; they become evil hiding in a sheep’s skin. They become the hand that makes families perish and children grieve alone.

History is a cruel teacher to those who ignore it. We must look at Professor Oloka-Onyango’s warnings in his book “When Courts Do Politics”. When reasoning is replaced by ideology, the social fabric begins to tear.

We need only look abroad to see the wreckage of political courts. In the United States, the Dred Scott decision where the Supreme Court attempted to solve a political issue rather than follow humanity pushed a nation into a bloody Civil War. In 1988, Malaysia faced a judicial crisis that started with lower courts following orders from above, ultimately leading to the collapse of the Supreme Court’s credibility.

When citizens view courts as biased, they stop seeking legal redress. They turn to vigilantism. They turn to chaos.

I am not condemning the bench, but calling it back. This is a plea for a return to sanity. To the men and women of the robe: you are losing your way.

Remember the famous maxim of Lord Denning: “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.” You may hold the gavel today, but history will judge your actions not the person who gave you the order.

Uganda is bigger than any political term or any individual’s ambition. Justice is not a gift the state grants to its friends; it is a right for the weak to be protected from the strong. It is better to retire with your honor intact than to be the instrument that destroys a family’s life.

Team Judiciary, the people are mourning. The law is bleeding. At this hour, where is your courage?

 The author is a Lawyer and concerned Citizen!