By Mulengera Reporters
Its officially known Justice Bart Katurebe Magunda will (by virtue of age) cease to be Chief Justice mid next year. As has happened for his predecessors Benjamin Odoki and Stephen Kavuma, the law requires that Katurebe eases out the moment he clocks 70 which he is becoming next year.
Unlike Parliament and Legislature where Rebecca Kadaga and YK Museveni can serve for an eternity, in the Judiciary the law and practice have been different.
One has to simply go or resist that and end in total humiliation as was the case with Benjamin Odoki, a Dar es Salaam University OB who Museveni tried and failed to keep around longer.
In his case, Katurebe is too decent to even ponder clinging on. Sources close to him say, the ailing CJ has emotionally prepared himself to voluntarily ease out when his day comes.
And he has lots of plans up his sleeves including retiring upcountry to oversee the operations of his lucrative tourist recreation facility on Lake Bunyonyi which his equally graceful wife is already overseeing.
It’s a serious operation and the President was there sometime back to endorse their high standards resulting into increased tourist bookings.
BAMUGEREIRE’S TURN?
Knowledgeable sources say the President, who ultimately decides who becomes CJ, has for some time been weighing the prospects of gifting Uganda with its pioneer female CJ.
And 50 year old Catherine Bamugemereire remains the most favored. Going by the assignments she has lately accomplished, Museveni considers the Lady Judge from Manafwa to be someone he can do business with at that level. Besides excellently satisfying the President in the way she handled the KCCA and UNRA public inquiries, Bamugemereire is strong in her own right.
She is well educated and hails from the right part of the country-Bugisu that no one can accuse of eating too much. They previously produced a Chief Justice in Masika of Obote II period.
Bamugemereire also has personal trust and connections with people who matter and are capable of emboldening any decision by the President. First Lady Janet Museveni is one of them.
She is renowned for preferring Born Again ladies and Bamugemereire has such credentials. Janet showed extreme fondness for her when she drove to the Judge’s Kampala residence sometime back when one of her parents died. She spent hours there commiserating with the family.
Bamugemereire’s own husband GB is Deputy IGG but his contract will be ending soon along with that of Irene Mulyagonja and human rights lawyer Mariam Wangadya. This means the day Museveni grants Catherine the CJ slot, nobody will say the Bamugemereire family is already eating enough.
Yet Museveni has previously showed public confidence in Catherine in ways he rarely does with other public officials including giving her a lift in his official car after a public function. The last time that happened was when he returned from Lusanja where the much-resented city businessman Medard Kiconco had brutally evicted hundreds of families.
As he went there to sympathize with families, Museveni called Bamugemereire who was expected to provide some solutions in her capacity as chairperson of the land commission of inquiry whose work has sold her across the country as “a people’s judge.”
Museveni, being on the steering himself, signaled Bamugemereire to join him and the two luxuriously drove to Entebbe State House, a journey that was broadcast live on TV. This portrayed her as powerful and trusted by the H.E. but it also caused enemies for Catherine who subsequently began being targeted by fellow judges.
Knowledgeable sources say the recent incident that saw Museveni provocatively reward soldiers who humiliatingly blocked Bamugemereire’s access to a certain army facility in Mutungo Hill is characteristic of how the President works.
“It was only meant to trim her a little bit so that when she is eventually made CJ, she will always remember where the real power lies. The big man is never comfortable with people getting positions when they are too powerful. He must always remain their savior. It was important to create that impression in her otherwise the plan to make her next CJ remains on table. It’s an option the President is still considering,” says a State House source who has worked with the President for long.
Unlike Katurebe who became CJ when he was 65 (making him eligible for only 5 years), Bamugemereire is just 50 meaning she can as well serve as CJ for as long as 20 years before becoming ineligible on grounds of age.
The other fellow Easterners would have been the much presidential-bashed IGG Irene Mulyagonja (who Museveni finds too principled) or Easter Kisakye. Whereas Kisakye too stands high chance, largely because of her seniority and well demonstrated loyalty to the President and his NRM interests (going her past decisions), being 60 (10 years to retirement) diminishes her eligibility since Museveni (who has ruled for over 30 years and still counting) prefers longevity of tenure. She is also less known to the public unlike Bamugemereire who is clearly a house hold name.
Bamugemereire also merits to be rewarded because her land inquest report is what the big man will be using to justify massive legislative reforms he has always desired to occasion in land management. One of these is the creation of Uganda Land Authority that will be a powerful entity merging UWA, NEMA, NWSC, NFA and others into one prestigious entity.
Museveni, who has always complained of dissatisfaction with the way CA delegates legislated on land, will finally have his way and for enabling all that, Bamugemereire (whose UNRA report and proposals paved way for Allen Kagina’s ascendancy) will naturally have to be rewarded.
STANDING IN HER WAY
But there are other judicial officers (some more appropriate) that Museveni will have to overcome and disappoint in making Bamugemereire the next CJ. These include Dr. Esther Kisakye Mayambala, a former Makerere Family Law lecturer and former FIDA VP, who has been Supreme Court member since 2009.
She is also the most senior on the bench after Katurebe though this is a practice from which Museveni is free to depart while working with Justice Benjamin Kabito’s JSC to determine the next CJ. Kisakye also has a PhD the very reason she is called Doctor.
There is also Justice Stella Arach Amoko who favorably competed for the DCJ job (along with Mulyagonja) only for the appointing authority to prefer Alfonse Owiny Dollo. She has been a judge since her first appointment in 1997.
The legal career for 65 year old Amoko began in the 1970s when she worked in Attorney General’s Chambers in the Justice Ministry. She started out as a State Attorney.
In 2010, she was posted to Court of Appeal from where she was elevated to Supreme Court where she recently must have made Museveni happy by upholding the scrapping of age limit in the Constitution. Her biggest undoing is age because by the time Katurebe eases out, she will be 3-4 years to clocking mandatory retirement age of 70.
Fred Egonda Ntende is equally eligible but the Museveni establishment has always considered him too principled to do business with. Otherwise he is associated with the authorship of well reasoned judgments and for 5 years (up to 2014) he served as the expatriate CJ for Seychelles. The 63 year old Ntende has been in the Judiciary for now 30 years.
Justice Kenneth Kakuru, arguably the country’s most popular judge if the public opinion were to count, is equally eligible but Museveni is unlikely to ever be comfortable with him notwithstanding coming from Western Uganda just like him. Not only did 61 year old Kakuru rule against the Magezi law in Mbale, Ofwono Opondo says as a private lawyer, Kakuru actively supported Col Kizza Besigye in 2001.
At 64, Supreme Court’s Justice Richard Buteera is eligible as well. The former DPP would politically not face any hurdles as he is among those the H.E. can easily do business with having loyally served him as a DPP that many considered to be politically biased.
The man from Kisoro has been in Supreme Court now for 6 years having previously served as Chief Registrar of Courts of Judicature. A report in Daily Monitor shows that Buteera started out in 1982 as a Magistrate.
At just 63 years of age, DCJ Owiny Dollo too is eligible and would bring to that office the experience of Legislature, Executive and Judiciary having served in all through his public service career.
In CA (1994-1995) and 6th Parliament, Dollo represented Agago County now of Prof Ogenga Latigo. He was also a Minister in the early Museveni years having prominently participated in drafting legal documents on which the peace deal between Museveni’s NRA and rebel UPDM was achored.
Before becoming a High Court judge in January 2008, Dollo had served as legal counsel for Mediator Riek Machar during the GoU/LRA peacetalks that began in 2006. He famously heard the case of the July 2010 twin bombing terror suspects who he convicted.
Principal Judge Yerokam Bamwine, who had also excelled at the interviews that brought in Bart Katurebe in FY2013/14, is eligible because he is just 64 years right now. He is eminent, humorous, sociable, eloquent, knowledgeable, incorruptible and respected by colleagues on the bench.
He has been Principal Judge having replaced Mzee James Munange Ogoola. He is a high commitment person who will be remembered for popularizing plea-burgaining and mandatory mediation in criminal and civil matters respectively. The aim is to save Court’s time, overcome backlog and harness service delivery.
Yerokam Bamwine has been a judicial officer for 36 years counting from November 1983 when he was first posted as a Magistrate. Last time his name had been passed by the JSC but the President preferred Bart Katurebe Magunda who, despite growing up in Western Uganda, has Buganda ancestry except that his parents migrated to Bunyaruguru.
Knowledgeable sources say that on hearing the man was grumbling and feeling disappointed, Museveni sent for Yerokam Bamwine and told him: “Sebo who told you Banyankole are going to be everything?” He told him being PJ was good enough adding that Bart Magunda, a son of Baganda migrants who years ago emigrated to Ankole (just like the Wavamunnos grew up in Isingiro), was to be the next CJ and that put the matter to rest.
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