A petition to the leadership of Uganda’s Judiciary — and a test of what independence still means
By Rukirabashaija Kakwenza, Director, Institute for Justice and Accountability in Uganda (iJA)
On 4 July 2026, in a nationally televised Address to the Nation, the President of Uganda described the country’s Judiciary as “colonial, neo-colonial, tragic-comic, obscurantist, disconnected, and provocative.” In the same address, he signalled a desire for the security forces to step in and “fill the gaps” left by the courts.
Read that sentence again. This was not a passing complaint from a frustrated litigant, or the ordinary friction every judiciary in a free society learns to live with. This was the Head of the Executive branch declaring, in his own voice and before the whole nation, that a co-equal arm of the State is illegitimate — and that soldiers should be doing its job instead.
At iJA, we have chosen not to let that declaration pass unanswered. This week we submitted a formal petition to the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, and the Principal Judge of Uganda, asking the Judiciary to do what only it can do: speak, in its own name, in defence of its own independence.
The Constitution Is Not a Courtesy
Uganda’s Constitution does not treat judicial independence as a favour the Executive extends when convenient. Article 128(1) states plainly that in exercising judicial power, the courts “shall be independent and shall not be subject to the control or direction of any person or authority.” Article 128(2) forbids anyone from interfering with the courts. Article 128(3) goes further still, obliging every organ and agency of the State to actively protect that independence.
These are not abstractions written for the comfort of judges in their chambers. They exist for the ordinary citizen — the one whose liberty, property, and life depend on there being a forum that even the powerful cannot command.
When the President brands the courts “obscurantist” and proposes the army fill their gaps, the damage does not stop at hurt feelings on the Bench. It is an instruction, issued from the highest office in the land, telling every soldier, prosecutor, and prison officer that the courts are an obstacle to route around rather than an authority to obey. And instructions like this are rarely left on the page. They are carried out immediately — in cells, at roadblocks, by men who take presidential contempt as their marching orders.
This Is Already Happening
The gravest part of this petition is that it does not describe a hypothetical future. It describes Uganda’s present, and the evidence sits in the Judiciary’s own case files.
Dr Kizza Besigye, a civilian, was seized in Nairobi on 16 November 2024 and rendered to Uganda outside any lawful process, then placed before a military court — until Uganda’s own Supreme Court ruled that trying civilians in military courts is unconstitutional. Even now, his trial has proceeded without the counsel of his choosing after his lead advocate was imprisoned, and a prosecution witness testified with no defence lawyer present to cross-examine. He has collapsed in the dock, in handcuffs, while soldiers denied his own physician access to him.
Senior Counsel Erias Lukwago, an officer of the court, was abducted for the act of serving court process, held incommunicado, and remanded to prison. Jailing a lawyer for doing his job is not a gap in the system. It is the system’s gap being filled — with a cell.
Sam Mugumya was seized on 26 August 2025. When the High Court issued a writ of habeas corpus, the State returned a sworn statement claiming it did not have him and did not know his whereabouts. Credible evidence suggests otherwise. A false return to a court’s own writ is not a bureaucratic failure — it is perjury filling the gap where judicial authority should be.
None of these are complaints from outsiders looking in. They are matters of Ugandan record, in Ugandan courts, concerning Ugandan citizens. Each is a live example of security forces already doing exactly what the President said, on 4 July, he wished them to do. The address did not announce a new policy. It confessed to an existing one.
A Judiciary Bound Twice Over
Uganda’s courts answer to two systems at once: the Constitution of the Republic, and the international obligations the country has freely accepted, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Both are violated by the same silence. A citizen tortured in a Kampala cell breaches Article 24 of the Constitution and Article 7 of the Covenant in the very same instant.
A Judiciary that will not defend its own jurisdiction against encroachment by the army abandons that citizen twice — once before the Constitution he lives under, and once before the international community that is watching. The Judiciary cannot demand that security agencies respect this dual legal order while itself declining to affirm it. That lesson has to travel from the top, or it does not travel at all.
What We Are Asking For
No commission whose rulings go ignored, no advocate speaking from exile, and no foreign observer can supply what only the Chief Justice — sitting at the head of the third branch of government — can supply: a plain, public statement that Uganda’s courts are not gaps for soldiers to fill, but the constitutional forum before which soldiers, like everyone else, must bow.
Specifically, iJA’s petition asks the Judiciary’s leadership to:
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- State publicly and unequivocally where the Judiciary stands on the 4 July 2026 address, particularly the proposal that security forces assume judicial functions.
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- Affirm judicial independence under Articles 128(1)–(3) of the Constitution, and reject any assumption of judicial power by the armed forces.
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- Address the specific violations already on the record — the military trial of a civilian without his chosen counsel, the imprisonment of an advocate for serving legal process, and the false return to a writ of habeas corpus — and state what the Judiciary intends to do to vindicate its own authority in each case.
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- Reaffirm that no organ of the State stands above the Constitution or Uganda’s international legal obligations.
The Question History Will Ask
A judiciary is not tested in the years when the Executive speaks well of it. It is tested in the hour when the Executive holds it in contempt and reaches for the gun to replace it. That hour is here — it arrived, in truth, long before it was announced from the highest office in the land on 4 July 2026.
History, and the people of Uganda, will not ask whether the courts were provoked. They will ask only one thing: what did the courts say in reply — and did they say anything at all?
iJA respectfully urges the leadership of the Judiciary to answer. And to answer as a branch that knows it is equal to the others, and subordinate to none but the Constitution and the people it serves.
The full text of iJA’s formal petition, submitted to the Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice, and Principal Judge of Uganda on 3 August 2026, is reproduced in full below.
PETITION TO THE LEADERSHIP OF THE JUDICIARY OF UGANDA
On the Presidential Address of 4 July 2026 and the Constitutional Duty of the Courts to Defend Their Own Independence
TO: The Hon. the Chief Justice The Hon. the Deputy Chief Justice The Hon. the Principal Judge Courts of Judicature, Kampala
THROUGH: info@judicature.go.ug, copied to the Uganda Law Society at uls@uls.or.ug
My Lords,
INTRODUCTION
The Institute for Justice and Accountability in Uganda submits this petition and asks the leadership of the Judiciary to state publicly, and in its own voice, where it stands. On 4 July 2026, in an Address to the Nation, the President of the Republic described the Judiciary of Uganda as “colonial, neo-colonial, tragic-comic, obscurantist, disconnected, and provocative.” In the same address he signalled a desire that the security forces assume judicial functions to “fill the gaps.” Those are not ordinary words of political criticism, of which every judiciary in a free society receives its share. They are a declaration, by the Head of the Executive, that a co-equal branch of the state is illegitimate, and that soldiers should do its work. Silence in the face of such a declaration is not neutrality. It is an answer, and it is the wrong one.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL SETTING
The independence of the Judiciary is not a courtesy the Executive extends in calm seasons and withdraws in storms but the command of the People, written into the supreme law. Article 128(1) of the Constitution provides that in the exercise of judicial power the courts shall be independent and shall not be subject to the control or direction of any person or authority. Article 128(2) forbids any person or authority from interfering with the courts. Article 128(3) obliges all organs and agencies of the State to accord the courts the assistance they require to protect their independence. These provisions do not protect judges for the comfort of judges. They protect the citizen, whose liberty, property, and life depend on the existence of a forum that the powerful cannot command.
A President who calls the courts obscurantist and proposes that the army fill their gaps has not merely wounded the dignity of the Bench, but has invited every soldier, every prosecutor, and every prison officer in Uganda to treat the courts as an obstacle to be worked around rather than an authority to be obeyed. The invitation, once issued, does not wait upon its formal acceptance. It is acted upon at once, in cells and at roadblocks, by men who take the President’s contempt as their instruction.
THE PROVOCATION IS NOT THEORETICAL
The petition would be grave if the President’s words stood alone. They do not. The doctrine of security forces filling the gaps of the Judiciary is not a proposal about the future but a description of the present, and the record already lies in this Judiciary’s own files.
Dr Kizza Besigye, a civilian, was seized in Nairobi on 16 November 2024 and rendered to Uganda outside all legal process, then arraigned before a military court, until this Court’s own Supreme Court held that the trial of civilians by soldiers is unconstitutional. In the last days his trial opened without the counsel of his choosing, his lead advocate having been imprisoned, and a prosecution witness gave evidence with no defence lawyer present to test it. He collapsed in the dock, in handcuffs, and soldiers denied his physician access to him.
Senior Counsel Erias Lukwago, an officer of this Court, was abducted for the act of serving court process, held incommunicado, and remanded to prison. To jail an advocate for serving papers is to fill the gap in the Judiciary with a cell.
Mr Sam Mugumya was seized on 26 August 2025 and, on a writ of habeas corpus granted by the High Court, the State returned on oath that he was not in its custody and that his whereabouts were unknown. Credible evidence indicates otherwise. When a sworn return to this Court’s own writ is false, the gap in the Judiciary has been filled by perjury. These are not the complaints of foreigners. They are matters of Ugandan record, before Ugandan courts, concerning Ugandan citizens. Each is an instance of the security forces already doing what the President on 4 July said he wished them to do. The address did not propose a new policy. It confessed an old one.
THE DUAL OBLIGATION OF THE COURTS
Uganda’s legal order has a dual nature. The courts sit at once under the Constitution of the Republic and under the international law the country has freely embraced, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter among them. Both bind the Judiciary, and both are betrayed by the same silence. A citizen tortured in a Kampala cell is a breach of Article 24 of the Constitution and of Article 7 of the Covenant in the same instant. A court that will not defend its own jurisdiction against the army abandons the citizen twice over, once before his own Constitution and once before the world that is watching in Geneva. The Judiciary cannot teach the security agencies to respect this dual order and at the same time decline to affirm it itself. The lesson descends from the top or it does not descend at all. No commission whose orders are ignored, no advocate in exile, and no foreign body can supply what only the Chief Justice, sitting at the head of the third branch, can supply: the plain public statement that the courts of Uganda are not gaps to be filled by soldiers, but the constitutional forum before which soldiers, like all others, must bow.
WHAT THIS PETITION ASKS
iJA respectfully petitions the leadership of the Judiciary as follows.
First, that the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, and the Principal Judge state publicly, and without equivocation, the position of the Judiciary on the Presidential Address of 4 July 2026, and in particular on the proposal that the security forces assume judicial functions.
Second, that the leadership affirm, in that statement, the independence of the courts under Articles 128(1) to (3) of the Constitution, and reject any assumption of judicial power by the armed forces.
Third, that the leadership address the specific conduct by which the security forces have already usurped judicial functions, the trial of a civilian without his counsel, the imprisonment of an advocate for serving process, and the false return to a writ of habeas corpus, and state what the Judiciary will do to vindicate its own authority in each.
Fourth, that the leadership reaffirm that Uganda’s courts are bound by both the Constitution and the international obligations of the Republic, and that no organ of the State stands above either.
CONCLUSION
My Lords, a judiciary is not tested in the years when the Executive praises it. It is tested in the hour when the Executive holds it in contempt and reaches for the gun to replace it. That hour has arrived, or arrived long before, announced from the highest office in the land on 4 July 2026. History, and the People of Uganda, will not ask whether the courts were provoked. They will ask only what the courts said in reply, and whether they said anything at all. iJA respectfully urges the leadership of the Judiciary to answer, and to answer in the voice of a branch that knows it is equal to the others and subordinate to none but the Constitution and the People.
Respectfully,
Rukirabashaija Kakwenza, Director, Institute for Justice for Accountability in Uganda
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