By Mulengera Reporters
Friday late afternoon, Commissioner General of Prison Dr. Johnson Byabashaija rang Attorney General Kiwanuka Kiryowa seeking to be guided on when to release Kizza Besigye and other similarly-held inmates who have been incacerated for years over Military Court Martial-related trials.
On Friday, the Supreme Court (whose full session Byabashaija followed) declared all tials of civilians in army courts unconstitutional and directed that the same be immediately stopped. When he rang him for guidance, Kiwanuka Kiryowa told Byabashaija not to immediately release Dr. Besigye and instead hold on and wait for written guidance from the AG Chambers.
This Monday, Senior Counsel Martha Karua and Erias Lukwago led a large team of Besigye lawyers to Prisons headquarters where they met with Dr. Byabashaija who admitted to them that he realizes he no longer has any lawful ground to stand on to keep Besigye and other similarly-held Ugandans caged except that he can’t proceed to release them without receiving written guidance and authorisation from the AG who is the principal legal advisor to the GoU.
Karua told reporters that they have nothing against Byabashaija or UPS leadership but the AG who has obstinately refused to realize his obligation to act very promptly on matters of human rights violations. Karua explained that the continued caging of Dr. KB is a clear violation of human rights, a situation she signalled readiness to continue publicising among all prudent-minded actors in Kenya, the EAC region and globally.
Indeed, as she addressed reporters in Kampala on Monday, the former Kenyan Justice Minister was flanked by a large number of Pan-Africanist lawyers from Kenya, Senegal, West Africa, Tanzania and France besides officials from global human rights organisations like Amnesty International etal.
The lawyers advised Kiryowa to merely do his work of guiding the UPS and the authorities in UPDF because there is simply nothing else he can do as the AG now that Uganda’s topmost and final Court of Judicature has spoken so unambigeously.
Erias Lukwago said that the AG had the opportunity and said or submitted everything he knew to justify the continued persecution of civilians in military tribunals and it was all rejected by the Supreme Court whose judgment is out in black & white for everyone to see.
Karua called on President Museveni, whose well-stated unwillingness to promptly comply with the Supreme Court decision will naturally diminish credible investors’ confidence in Uganda as a law-abiding country, to reflect on the very costly and disqualifying consequences that his army’s refusal to release Besigye, Obed Lutale Kamulegeya and other political prisoners will have on the reputation of Uganda as a member of the EAC, AU, UN and the international community of nations. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
