
“You adjourn a bail application. What is so novel in a bail ruling? Someone tells you, I’m going to hear your case, but I’ll hear your bail application two weeks, three weeks away from today. You are defeating the Constitution. Because in the Constitution, everybody is entitled to be free, except where their accuser places on your table justification for restriction. Isn’t that the position of the law? Every innocent person is entitled to freedom. Now, you’re aiding the State to incarcerate somebody who is innocent until two weeks when that person will come to justify his freedom. I think it’s unfair” (…) “Why do you charge a lot of money? Somebody has been arrested. Actually, somebody is a victim. The police arrest people, beat them up, we witnessed it in Kawempe recently. Someone has been boxed by the DPC, he comes to you with a swollen face, you remand him, then when you choose to hear, you ask a lot of money. These ordinary people, they pick on the streets, trying to survive. Why do you make bail so prohibitive?” – Medard Ssegoona MP (03.04.2025).
Justice delayed is injustice served. The state is deliberately using their power and the instruments of state to take away the freedom, liberty and ability to move as civilians. As the state can apprehend, charge and detain people for prolonged time. That’s a common occurrence in the Republic.
It is vital that the August House knows about the practice and get to know the justification of it. As it is in contradiction with the rights of the individuals and the ones criminally penalized without any sentencing. People are kept incommunicado, detained and such without proper trial or even due process. That means they are illegally kept as prisoners and as state property. This should worry the authorities, but in this day and age. They don’t mind at all.
“You get somebody who is battered, who is bleeding, and you remand that person. You do not even instruct prisons, go and keep this person in hospital. Instead, you say, I am remanding somebody to Luzira. You know, just next door in Kenya, Kenyans went and burned their parliament. We do not want to see Ugandans burning our courts. Why? Because once the dignity of the court is questioned and shaken, we are in trouble because somebody who would have taken me to court, will use a panga, will resort to mob justice” (…) “Before you receive information from the Commissioner General, you are the one who remanded these people. You definitely know who you remanded, you know when you required them to come back. How can somebody be in prison for a year without your remand warrant? When people are being committed to the high court for trial, you also have that record because the magistrate who is committing notes on the file” (Ssegoona, 03.04.2025).
This here just states what we have said for a long time. Several of us has called this practice out in the void. There are too many who are penalized and detained without proper trial. Neither is there any evidence or proof of the allegations or charges pinned on the individuals. Therefore, the reality is grim, and this is what the state is willing to do.
This is what the authorities … and the state does to citizens. It is the tools it has and willing to do. Ssegoona MP spoke facts, but don’t the state or the authorities to act upon it. The MP can speak out, but that doesn’t matter for the ones in office. They are serving the President and his inner circle. These people are favoured for acting this way and that’s why the practice is so normalized. Peace.









