Tale of Summayah and what prisoners need: A friend who just won’t give up

Let me begin this story from the end: Sumie got married sometime last year…or the year before and works in the stationery business on Nasser Road in Kampala. As for the boy, he is now an architect and leaving a quiet, peaceful and productive life. Probably married too.

I think the starting point was one of my lecturers at the Law Development Centre (LDC), Mr Andrew Karokora Munanura who, over lunch told me, “As you go out into the field, you must give back to society – do pro bono work in the community.”

So I launched my legal career in 2011 by offering free legal services in Budaka District, a trail that took me to Luzira Prison. I visited one client, but ended up with dozens and dozens of them, requiring legal assistance.

Prison has very interesting dynamics. Information moves at supersonic speed, without the benefit of smart phones. I soon became a regular visitor at the prison, because of the demand for legal assistance. It didn’t take me long to note a very sorry pattern: most of the cases were remand prisoners who had been dumped in jail and forgotten completely. 

A few were convicts and needed appellate counsel to argue their appeals. All the remandees needed was a few minutes before a magistrate or judge and they’d walk out of jail. To achieve this, two things were required: one, a lawyer who understands the criminal legal process. Two, a family member or friend who believes in the prisoner and is determined to do everything possible to get them out of jail.

Interestingly, most of the families I contacted told me to go to hell. To many families, it was a good idea for their kin to stay in jail; for them it was good riddance. A brother of a man accused of defilement even blocked my number after I had called him to remind him to pay for something at the court. All those whose families supported them went home. I only lost two appeals; one because it was a bad case, the other (a very good case) because the judge needed a file to refer to, which was somewhere in another court, and the family refused to facilitate the simple process of getting it.

One morning I got a call from Summayah – who turned out to be a very beautiful and gentle soul, a university student then. She then came to our chambers, pleading that I assist her friend who had been in jail for several months. The boy was 17 years old, in A-Level, about to sit his finals. She put all her savings – Shs50,000 – on my table. When I called the boy’s mother in Mbarara, she first blasted me for helping “that stubborn boy”. I talked to an uncle and got the same response. It appeared the only person in the world who believed in this boy was Sumie. At his first appearance in Buganda Road Court, Chief Magistrate Boniface Wamala (now a judge, and deservingly so) gave the boy bail. At the next appearance three weeks later, I raised a simple objection on a point of law that permanently killed the case. The boy settled back in school and I was greatly pleased when, years later, as a university student, he paid me a visit.

If there is a department of State that is working very well, it is the Uganda Prisons Service. They are not perfect; but they try very hard. They have elaborate systems and structures and a very orderly way of handling matters. If only they had better funding!

But they do not control the criminal legal system – police, prosecution authorities and the courts of law. The Prisons Service only receives prisoners (from courts) and won’t let them out until the courts tell them to do so, even if it means 100 years later.

It is my hypothesis that most of the prisoners in Uganda shouldn’t be in prison. Many convicts lost their cases because they were not supported to get a lawyer; so their appeals usually succeed. Those on long remand periods just need a lawyer and someone on the outside – friend or family – that believes in them. Someone that refuses to give up on them. Someone like Summayah.

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda     [email protected]