Former Rubaga deputy Resident City Commissioner Anderson Herbert Burora in the dock at Buganda Road Court. PHOTO | ABUBAKER LUBOWA
It has become a norm for journalists or people who are critical of powerful people in Uganda to be rushed to Buganda Road Court where heterogeneous charges are slapped on them before they are dispatched to Luzira prison for a lengthy remand period.
Parliament Speaker Anita Among is one of the political figures who has recently led the way in having her critics charged at the court. On account of the accusations of corruption, Speaker Among has become the subject of online criticism, with many calling her to resign. This is widely expected to culminate in a march to the House on July 23.
Days before that scheduled march, Fatuma Nansubuga, a resident of Kalerwe, singlehandedly pulled off a one-person demonstration at Parliament. Ms Nansubuga held placards, which called for Ms Among to resign on account of corruption.
Last week, the House Speaker used her verified social media platforms to categorically deny having masterminded the arrest and the charges that were subsequently levelled against Ms Nansubuga.
“There are so many things said about me that my staff have shared with me, which are unfounded. I have consistently said feedback from citizens who by right should hold leaders to account is what will ultimately strengthen our democracy,” she wrote, adding, “On that note, I have instructed my staff to organise a conversation here soon so we can all have an open conversation to listen to citizens and get feedback on what needs to be done better.”
While that conversation was yet to see the light of day, at least by press time, Mr Chris Obore, the head of communications and public affairs at Parliament, hosted an X (formerly Twitter) Space this past workweek in which he, among others, urged his listeners to “not approach fighting corruption from an anarchical point of view.”
Draconian provisions
Before all of this, Ms Nansubuga spent a couple of days incarcerated at the Central Police Station (CPS) in Kampala before what critics have described as “preposterous charges” were brought against her for, among others, holding placards that bore words indicating that Uganda must be free from corruption. Ms Nansubuga’s accusers say her actions inconvenienced the public in the exercise of their common rights by blocking their walkway. Her actions were thereby deemed to be a common nuisance.
While Ms Nansubuga was able to quickly secure bail, it has been a painful struggle for journalists Dickson Mubiru and Alirabaki Ssengooba. The two, who run a website called Grapevine, were arrested on June 18. They spent two days in the cells at CPS without clear explanation of the charges against them. Their families kept on pressing police officers led by Mr Stephen Tanui, then Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander (KPC), to give them a police bond. They were, however, told this was not possible because the journalists had annoyed a certain High Court judge who was about to retire.
With the constitutionally laid out duration of 48 hours lapsing, Mr Mubiru and Mr Ssengooba were rushed to the Buganda Road Court for a session presided over by Ronald Kayizzi, its Chief Magistrate.
The journalists were charged with two counts of publishing information without a valid broadcasting licence contrary to Section 27 of the Uganda Communication Commission (UCC).
While one of the stories they were accused of running without a licence implicated Parliament in corruption, the other implicated a judge in a corruption scandal.
After charging them, Mr Kayizzi remanded the journalists to the following day for their bail application to be heard. When they returned, Mr Kayizzi told them he couldn’t hear the bail application because the prosecutor was attending a workshop. The Chief Magistrate also added that the file had been split with one of the charges to be heard by Grade One magistrate Winne Nankya.
Underhanded tactics?
Splitting the file that emerges from the same facts, legal experts contend, has become a common practice. The intention of prosecution, they add, is to keep the accused endlessly in jail.
“It has now become standard by the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) to split files such that they get different days,” Mr Eron Kiiza, who has represented activists in different cases, told Sunday Monitor. “It also becomes hard for the accused to get bail because they have to move from one magistrate to another.”
When the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) was tasked by this writer to explain the rationale for splitting files their response was ambiguous.
“You have to ask the prosecutor who is in charge of the case. They can explain,” Irene Nakimbugye, the deputy spokesperson of the ODPP, said, adding, “Or you have to ask the magistrate who is in this case because for me I don’t know about this case.”
When Mr Mubiru and Mr Ssengooba appeared before Ms Nankya’s court on July 4, she heard their bail application. The Grade One magistrate, however, said she couldn’t determine it until July 9. This incidentally was the same day the accused were supposed to present their bail case before Mr Kayizzi.
Whilst Ms Nankya granted them bail, Mr Kayizzi said he wasn’t comfortable handling their file. Mr Kayizzi shocked court goers and the accused when he said the file had been transferred to the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court presided over by Chief Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu. The Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court was per the Judiciary set up to penalise manufacturers whose goods and products don’t conform to the specified Uganda standard.
When the court was being launched in 2017, then Chief Justice Bart Katureebe said there had previously been no organised mechanism for an efficient and effective enforcement of rights and obligations in the area of consumer standards, utilities and wildlife.
“There has always been a need to prioritise and improve the institutional, structural and legal mechanisms in this area of justice to eradicate misuse of utilities, illicit trade in wildlife, strengthening consumer protection and enhancing the delivery of quality services to the people of Uganda, “Justice Katureebe said.
Ominous signs
The taking of this case before Ms Kamasanyu has raised eyebrows because the same judicial officer invoked Section 24 of the Computer Misuse Act and sentenced Stella Nyanzi to 18 months in prison.
This was after the now exiled researcher used social media to abuse President Museveni and his deceased mother, Esteeri Kokundeka.
The High Court, still, on appeal trashed the conviction and set aside the sentence, on grounds that the prosecution, inter-alia, hadn’t established whether Nyanzi was in Uganda by the time she posted the impugned statements.
It was also Kamasanyu, who sentenced Brian Isiko, a student of the YMCA Jinja Branch, to two years in jail because he had committed the charge of cyberbullying and offensive communication under Section 24 of the Computer Misuse Act after he sent a barrage of love messages by telephone to Sylvia Rwabwogo, the then Kabarole District Woman MP.
The sentence and conviction were overturned by Justice Jane Frances Abodo, now the DPP, on grounds that Ms Kamasanyu hadn’t explained to the accused in his local language every detail of the charge and the ramifications of pleading guilty as the law mandates.
While two journalists are still being moved from one court to another, former Rubaga deputy Resident City Commissioner (RCC) Anderson Herbert Burora’s bail application came up at Buganda Road Chief Magistrate’s Court last Friday.
The matter was adjourned to July 25 principally because State Attorney Richard Burivumbuka was unavailable. Mr Burora was remanded to Luzira Prison on charges of hate speech, with prosecution claiming that Burora shared information that ridiculed, degraded, demeaned, and promoted hostility against Speaker Among.
While Mr Burora’s lawyers have questioned the way the DPP drafted the charges, saying they don’t reveal any specifics, Mr Theodore Ssekikubo, the Lwemiyaga lawmaker, expressed concern that the House Speaker is using her powers to clamp down on any kind of dissent.
“I have seen many powerful people, but this is the first time I have seen the Speaker of Parliament causing two people to be detained at Luzira prison because they spoke or did not appreciate something. This is politics,” Mr Ssekikubo said, adding, “If you do not want to be criticised, stay in your house; don’t come to politics. In politics, you tolerate caution, advice, or reprimand. There are lots of ways you can do that. But with this level of intolerance we are seeing, we are not happy.”
Hate speech
In a very unusual approach, the Parliament Speaker Anita Among has defended herself, saying she believes peaceful demonstration is a constitutional right and that she looks forward to listening to the likes of Ms Fatuma Nansubuga, a resident of Kalerwe, who singlehandedly pulled off a one-person demonstration at Parliament.
“I am a firm believer in the right of citizens to hold leaders accountable, just like Ms Nansubuga was doing. I have a duty to, in due course, engage and listen to her concern,” Speaker Among said recently.
Critics, however, hasten to point out that it was the House Speaker who urged Muhammad Nsereko, the Kampala Central lawmaker, to introduce amendments to the Computer Misuse Act that introduced the “hate speech” charge on Uganda’s legal books. It is this charge that Mr Burora, her nemesis, has been charged with.
The section says a person shall not write, send or share any information through a computer, which is likely to ridicule, degrade or demean another person, group of persons, tribe, ethnicity, religion or gender.
The section outlaws the creation of divisions among persons, a tribe, an ethnicity, religion or gender and the promotion of hostility against a person, group of persons, a tribe, an ethnicity, religion or gender and a person who contravenes those sections will be fined 750 currency points or imprisonment not exceeding seven years.
The amendment, which Mr Museveni quickly assented to, also criminalises what it terms as sharing of “misleading and malicious information about or relating to any person through computer” and the punishment for the convicted person is Shs15m or seven years in prison if not both.
