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MP Nambooze sues government over torture, seeks compensation
Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament Ms Betty Nambooze Bakireke on a hospital bed last year. File photo
What you need to know:
- Through her lawyers of Lukwago & Co. Advocates, Ms Nambooze who did not indicate how much should be given to her, wants court to declare that her brutal arrest and torture was unconstitutional, humiliating and degrading. She also wants exemplary damages for the psychological torture, mental anguish and emotional stress she suffered.
Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament Ms Betty Nambooze Bakireke has dragged government to court seeking for compensation over alleged torture in 2017.
Ms Nambooze in her petition filed before the High Court on Thursday, seeks a declaration that the torture, brutality and violence unleashed onto her by the combined forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and police, amounted to a violation of her constitutional rights.
The legislator who is also a shadow minister for local government states that on the 21st day of September 2017, parliament was besieged and blocked by police and UPDF personnel who ordered them to park at National Theatre thus making their work difficult.
“The heavy deployment by the combined forces of police and UPDF continued to be maintained even on the 27th day of September, 2017 in and around parliament when Hon Raphael Magyezi moved a motion seeking for leave to table a private member’s bill to amend the constitution,” Ms Nambooze states in the court documents.
She contends that when parliament had commenced, Hon Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda raised the matter about the heavy deployment of the armed personnel but instead the speaker suspended 25 members of parliament (MPs) including her.
Court documents indicate that no sooner had the speaker risen to exit from the chambers than several security personnel stormed the chambers and started molesting several MPs on the opposition side including herself.
She contends that as she was trying to exit with Hon Moses Kasibante they saw Hon Francis Zaake who appeared to be unconscious, however in the process of helping him they were intercepted.
“That while I was heading back to the lobby of parliament, I was again intercepted by some mean looking security personnel who pounced at me, violently charged and dragged me towards the South wing of parliament,” the legislator narrated.
“The said security personnel violently threw me down and I landed on my back as they continued beating and kicking me thereby subjecting me to inhuman and degrading treatment and grievous bodily harm,” she added.
She asserts that as a result of the acts of the security personnel in the course of executing their duties as full employees of Uganda government, she suffered excruciating pain, psychological torture, ridicule, mental anguish and gross inconveniences for which she holds the attorney general liable.
Through her lawyers of Lukwago & Co. Advocates, Ms Nambooze who did not indicate how much should be given to her, wants court to declare that her brutal arrest and torture was unconstitutional, humiliating and degrading. She also wants exemplary damages for the psychological torture, mental anguish and emotional stress she suffered.
According to the court documents, Nambooze was operated on left leg and spine at Manipal Hospitals India on July 30, 2018.
Court has summoned the Attorney General to file his defence within 15 days before the case is allocated to a judge for hearing.
