By Mulengera Reporters
In this analytical weekend news feature we shall focus on several things including the fact that Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo had initially schemed to perpetually sit on the AG’s appeal challenging Besigye strongman Mike Kabaziguruka’s victory in the Constitutional Court which interpreted the Constitution and expressly stated that it was illegal for civilians to be tried in Court Martial and military tribunals.
Having been caught trying to assasinate Gen YK Museveni at his Kisozi residence many years ago, Kabaziguruka (who until 2021 was the MP Nakawa Division) was arraigned and subjected to a very long trial in the army court, which he challenged by instructing Lukwago & Co Advocates to bring the matter before the Constitutional Court under Article 137 of the Constitution.
It’s Kabaziguruka’s victory in the Constitutional Court that the Attorney General Kiwanuka Kiryowa objected to by appealing to the Supreme Court which Dollo heads as Chief Justice.
Having realized that it was hard to contradict the findings of the Constitutional Court, which among other things clarified on the provisions of the Constitution under Chapter 8, Dollo opted to sitting on the appeal up to the end of his uneventful tenure which runs out in January 2026. He barely has one year to go!
It was anticipated among Dollo’s supporters that the death of two Supreme Court Justices (Ruby Opio Aweri & Stella Arach Omoko) would create Coram problems of some sort and become part of the broader justification as to why the AG appeal, urgent as it obviously seems to be, couldn’t be urgently inquired into. Dollo rightly knew that this matter was always going to be complicated; placing him between a rock and hard place.
To Uganda’s jurisprudence and constitutional development, this AG vs. Kabaziguruka matter is going to turn out to be as important as the Justice Udo Doma mid-1960s decision in Ex-Parte Matovu petition, which made it permissible for revolutions, similar to what Museveni staged in the 1980s under his NRA rebel army, to be used to overthrow any Constitutional order and thereafter be accepted as legitimate once successful.
The Kabaziguruka decision will equally be as important as what the Bart Katureebe-led Supreme Court rendered on the age limit appeal of 2018.
Politically very calculative as always, Dollo realized that agreeing with the Constitutional Court would win him support and additional legitimacy among human rights groups in Uganda, regionally and globally while causing him to be celebrated by the Ugandan public for an eternity. That is something great for someone, who statutorily will be entitled to keeping 100% of his salary and all the other benefits between January 2026 and the day he dies, to retire with.
It would also increase his acceptability and moral authority among fellow Chief Justices whose Summit on innovations like ADR he chairs on the African entire continent and beyond. ADR is about expediting ordinary people’s access to justice through alternatives like mediation, plea-bargaining etc. And the whole motivation is quick delivery of justice for the ordinary people-since the enduring perception has always been and will always be that ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’
Having deliberately chosen to be an internationalist, as opposed to being an inward-looking CJ, Dollo has all along ensured that significant financial resources of the institution he heads go into amplifying these ADR-related mechanisms to ensure that disputes brought before courts are expeditiously inquired into, concluded and judgment rendered without delay.
He has also been shinning through the arrangements of Pepperdine University partnership which is aimed at ensuring that the Ugandan Judiciary institution aligns and complies with internally accepted best practices. The same arrangement supports capacity building and the training of Ugandan Judicial officers.
Yet sitting on the Kabaziguruka/AG appeal for now almost 4 years didn’t make Dollo look good at all. It made him come off as someone contradicting stuff that is being repeatedly discussed and agreed upon in the CJs’ Summit which he chairs! Each time they meet, the CJs discuss measures that can mitigate case backlog while ensuring that cases brought before their courts are expeditiously concluded.
Having categorized the Kabaziguruka case as one that is very complicated, Dollo plotted a waiting game in the hope Ugandans would forget so that it’s inherited by his successor. And he was almost getting away with it and succeeding passing it on for his successor (since there was no much pressure for him to give it priority) until the manner of Dr. Kizza Besigye kidnap in Kenya blew up everything.
Herding Dr. KB in the military court martial, whose ineptness has since been exposed and laid bear through televised sessions, has increased scrutiny on Owiny-Dollo as to why his Court can mischieviously sit on the appeal for all these years.
The Chief Justice from Pader/Agago has all of sudden found himself under extreme pressure from local, regional and international human rights and governance activists and organizations. This has also created momentum for the extremely bad and very demonizing publicity for the Ugandan government, Judiciary and Dollo as a person.
Sources close to him say that Dollo, who is renowned for being thin-skinned and easily irritable, barely sleeps these days because of the endless scrutiny and bad publicity the Besigye military tribunal trial has created.
It has become increasingly clear that the original plan to sit on the Kabaziguruka thing, so that whoever becomes new CJ after him in January 2026 inherits it, is unsustainable. People are asking questions and answers have to be given. This has left Dollo with no option but to proclaim the judgment delivery date namely 31st January 2025 at 9am.
Whereas disallowing the AG’s appeal could eternally secure Dollo great legacy among the Ugandan people and increase his moral authority among fellow CJs (while creating plenty of breathing space for him on social media), agreeing with the Constitutional Court’s curtailment of military tribunal trials (of civilians) will predictably attract extreme retribution for Dollo from the President and his ruling NRM establishment.
That Musevenist retribution will greatly affect Dollo especially if reports that he intends to rejoin elective politics or remain in active public life in any way after ending his judicial tenure (as opposed to going into pure retirement) are anything to go by. Otherwise there isn’t much that Gen Museveni can do to effectively make Dollo regret his decision (should the AG appeal be disallowed in the Kabaziguruka case).
Gen Museveni can’t casually alter Dollo’s post-retirement benefits which are statutory and are already deeply entrenched under the newly enaced Administration of the Judiciary Act. Like Bart Katureebe before him, Dollo will keep 100% of his salary as CJ and other benefits. There is no way Gen Museveni can cause the same to be amended without facing the push back of the Acholis while at the same time being seen to be doing retribution!
But if the outgoing CJ is crafting something in the political direction with his Acholi co-ethnics like Olala Otunnu etc, there Gen Museveni and his brother Gen Salim Saleh (appropriately based in Gulu these days) will have lots of leverage to make him regret his actions and omissions in case the AG appeal is disallowed.
There are some logical reasons why some people think that Mzee Alfonse Owiny-Dollo isn’t intending to just go home to Agago and rest after January 2026. Not very long ago, he incorporated Owiny-Dollo Foundation whose activities have fermented speculation that the naturally very belligerent and paranoid Judge from Acholi has a political agenda of some sort.
Closely working with Amb. Olara Otunnu (who has never denounced hate for Gen Museveni), Dollo has been using this Foundation to engage in aggressive fundraising ostensibly to provide education opportunities for children from vulnerable families in Acholi. Meetings on how to amplify this fundraising have for sometime been held at Dollo’s home in Nakasero which is the CJ’s official residence (near Emin Pasha hotel).
Philanthropic as these charity efforts may seem, some observers have construed the same as being indicative of a soon-retiring Chief Justice who at the same time harbors some serious agenda post-January 2026.
Antagonizing the powers that be by disallowing the AG appeal could, without a doubt, complicate this fundraising and the rest of the stuff feeding into the Owinyi-Dollo Foundation. This could give Dollo (who even as CJ has been an active and very partisan agitator for the Acholi interests) reason to think twice and cautiously as he prepares to proclaim his Supreme Court’s decision on the AG/Kabaziguruka appeal. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
