By Mulengera Reporters
During the Tuesday debate, things went so badly for Justice Minister Norbert Mao to the extent that his fellow lawyer Gen David Muhoozi (who is also State Minister for Internal Affairs) briefly came to the microphone and declared “I don’t envy this Honorable colleague of mine [Mao] for being in the position he finds himself in this afternoon.”
It all started with Speaker Anita Among making it clear that the 11th Parliament will have fallen short of being true people’s representatives if they merely kept quiet as the state continues to orchestrate political persecution of Dr. Kizza Besigye.
The Speaker, who partly was mentored by Besigye in the FDC party to which she belonged before embracing Musevenism, then proceeded to cross examine Mao to whom she read several questions as the opposition MPs and some in the media gallery ululated.
She asked Mao why he hadn’t effectively advised government in light of the Supreme Court decision that was rendered some three weeks ago clearly prohibiting trial of civilians in military courts. Speaking very eloquently and with extreme clarity, Among demanded to know why Kizza Besigye continued to be locked up at Luzira without a valid remand order.
She also demanded to know from Mao why people at his Ministry had continued with their indifference even after the photos of a terribly ailing Dr. KB went viral following his appearance at Buganda Road Court last Friday. Maintaining that Parliament wasn’t here to declare KB innocent or otherwise, Among reminded Mao and other Ministers present that the persecution Dr. KB has endured can befall anyone anytime anywhere.
Speaking with unusual eloquence, Among said there is no way injustice targeting an ailing old man of KB’s age can be justice for anyone anywhere. “No one can claim to be safe because today it’s Dr. Besigye and tomorrow it will be any of us,” said Among herself a lawyer. She also castigated the unfavorable conditions under which Dr. KB continues to be held even when everyone, including the Commissioner General of Prisons, is agreeing that his health is deteriorating every passing day.
Besides telling the House how Ministers such as Dr. Chris Baryomunsi of ICT can no longer safely travel to and stay in their constituencies in Kigezi because their own voters are protesting the Besigye political persecution, Among justified why KB’s human rights and bail denial (even when he is grieviously ill) was urgent and it was not something Parliament would afford being indolent about.
The matter wasn’t even on the order paper but Among leveraged her powers as the presiding officer under Rule 25(1) to vary the order paper in order to require Ministers Norbert Mao, David Muhoozi and Deputy AG Jackson Kafuuzi to respond promptly on behalf of government. Having realised that time was of essence, Anita Among demanded that Mao (aided by the other two Ministers) updates the House on the latest on Besigye.
She exhibited her credentials as a lawyer and effectively cross examined Mao on every point he raised as the rest of the MPs, in a very bipartisan fashion, died of laughter while giving applause. At some point Mao, who was initially flowing but eventually got deflated because of intense grilling from Among, claimed that KB’s deteriorating health was self-inflicted and an outcome of his choice to go on a hunger strike.
This attracted almost unanimous protestation from MPs present. And clearly not used to Anita Among acting this tough and this consistently, Mao thought he would get away with this provocative remark of KB’s frail health being self-inflicted. Far from it, Anita Among who (quite unexpectedly) was carefully following his answers, instantly shot back demanding that Mao explains “the peculiar circumstances” under which an ailing Besigye has continued to languish in Luzira prison. She demanded that the Minister also responds to clear human rights violations which prompted Besigye to protest by going on hunger strike.
Mao didn’t have much to say in response to this apart from declaring that he agrees that hunger strike is one of the legitimate forms of protest for a person faced with Besigye-like circumstances. The Minister also tried to blame Besigye’s lawyers for the delay in his release.
Mao, who doesn’t have much legal practice experience having been a lawyer who rarely goes to Court, controversially claimed that the lawyers had let down Dr. KB by taking two full weeks without extracting the decree from the Supreme Court judgment which the AG had to endorse. He asserted that KB’s lawyers opted for politicking to get media publicity as opposed to doing basic things. That eventually when they acted and put in the draft decree, their copy had glaring mistakes and errors plus typos which the AG had to correct on their behalf. That it had many misspelt names too.
The unrelenting Speaker Anita Among once again had Norbert Mao on this one too in a fashion he seemingly didn’t expect. She demanded that Mao shares or tables a copy of the draft decree which he was claiming was full of typos. He couldn’t produce any. Instead, he referred to something else a copy of which he said was on his phone in soft copy form.
Among insisted that he tenders a copy of that draft or else gets his mouth shut. She also reminded him about her authority to require him to stop demonising KB’s lawyers since none of them was present to defend themselves. Mao tried to protest but the Speaker shut him up.
As he struggled to catch his breath while recomposing himself from the corner where Among had cornered him, Mao was struck by another bombshell when Bugiri MP Asuman Basalirwa said something he didn’t know how to promptly respond to. A lawyer who regularly appears in Court and is in full legal practice, unlike Mao, would have been better prepared to respond.
Basalirwa schooled Mao about one basic fact regarding the so-called decree, which the Minister had conveniently blamed Besigye’s lawyers for omitting to promptly extract. Basically a decree is a summary highlighting key legal points and directives of Court as contained in the relevant judgment.
Basalirwa, who is active in legal practice unlike Mao, submitted that the contemporary practice these days is that all Supreme Court decisions are self-executing; implying that a party doesn’t have to wait for a decree to comply with the same. He went on to inform cheerful fellow MPs that the Supreme Court matter was interparty implying that the AG, who actually was the appellant, already knew the contents of and what the Supreme Court Judgement meant for Dr. Besigye and other similarly-held prisoners of conscience.
“In any case, I want to remind Chairman Mao that many of the political prisoners affected by the ruling are poor people who can’t afford a lawyer and they don’t have any. So, how can the Minister of Justice expect such people to instruct a lawyer to extract a decree on their behalf and bring it to the AG Chambers?”
This submission by Basalirwa put Mao totally off balance. He lost his composure, got annoyed and couldn’t make any eloquent and intelligible submission thereafter. He was clearly stammering as if his mouth had been stuffed with heaps of cotton wool.
As he was struggling to carry on, Bugabula South MP Henry Maurice Kibalya got the microphone, rising on a point of order. Kibalya said many demeaning things including illustrating why in his view, Minister Mao had become so useless to the extent that he was now sounding like ‘the chairman of the General Court Martial’ and not the competent legal advisor to government (he is supposed to be) anymore.
On realising that Mao was no longer in position to steer the ship from the government side, Anita Among signalled David Muhoozi to say something being the Minister of Internal Affairs who directly supervises Uganda Prisons Servives which has been accused of holding Dr. Besigye illegally without any valid remand order. Muhoozi started by making it clear that he wasn’t among those envying the unenviable position Mao found himself in.
He demanded for balancing between Besigye’s human rights as a person and the state having to do its work of keeping Uganda secure. In the end, he was heckled by MPs from both sides of the aisle, which inihibited the effectiveness of his submission. It ended in total disaster for him, just like it ended for Mao.
Anita Among insisted that the KB matter was an urgent one and she created a committee whose members she demanded go somewhere and discuss some quick way forward for Dr. KB whose deteriorating health the Speaker maintained was an urgent a matter and couldn’t wait.
The committee had greats like Abdul Katuntu, Basalirwa, Muhoozi, Francis Mwijukye, LoP Senyonyi, Betty Nambooze and Mao who chaired their meeting among others. She granted an adjournment to allow them go caucus and report back.
On return, Mao (clearly still subdued) announced that they had made progress to the effect that Dr. Besigye would appear before High Court on Wednesday from where his bail-related fate would be decided. Speaking on behalf of the opposition, Ssenyonyi and the shadow AG Wilfred Niwagaba appropriately thanked the Speaker for deliberately standing up for Dr. Besigye and other similarly-held political prisoners. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
