Hope in Uganda after all?

Some good news, perhaps, in Uganda. According to this cover story in The Independent, Norbert Mao (left), the country's Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, opposes the use of military courts for trying civilians. Excerpt:

The minister has said what is going on with the trial of the NUP 32 shows the lawlessness of security forces. It is the army subverting and abusing judicial processes, he says.

Mao has based on that conviction to promise to end the suffering of the NUP supporters.

“Let us review this matter at the end of October,” says Mao, a lofty dreamer who heads the opposition Democratic Party but last year, on July 21, 2022, accepted a deal that earned him a job and pawned his party into a partnership with the ruling NRM party of President [Yoweri] Museveni.

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Mao says Uganda is a signatory to several international human rights conventions, including the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights that prohibit the trial of civilians in military courts.

“Military courts should not have circumstances where they have jurisdiction over civilians,” he says.

He also says that Uganda’s constitution guarantees independence of the judiciary.

“It is impossible to achieve this independence, when the army, an arm of the executive is trying civilians,” he says.

According to him, the general court martial was intended to only try soldiers.

“The only circumstance under which military courts could have jurisdiction over civilians is for instance, if a civilian acts in a manner which is harmful to security and in my view that should only be if someone cooperates with a foreign state,” he says.

Adding that with the NUP supporters, this has not been the case. He laments the army’s increasing tendency to try civilians at the slightest excuse.

“The trial of civilians in military courts in our country appears to be the rule rather the exception,” he says.

The Supreme Court of Uganda has yet to rule on a long-pending challenge to the military trial of civilians.