Guidelines set for anti-gay law hearing

Uganda's Constitutional Court has set five guidelines which will be followed in the run-up to the hearing of a petition challenging the enactment of the anti-gay law. The petition was filed by MP Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, alongside activists Frank Mugisha, Pepe Onziema, Jackline Kemigisa, Andrew Mwenda, Linda Mutesi, Kintu Nyago, Jane Nasiimbwa and MP Paul Bucyana Kiwizera. The Monitor reports that the guidelines states that the Attorney-General, the sole respondent, is required to come up with a joint scheduling memorandum in which brief facts of the petition will be highlighted, issues to be resolved and lists of authorities from each party which will be used during the hearing. The parties are also supposed to file legal arguments on points of law, and the Attorney-General to file his brief facts by tomorrow, and in case of a rejoinder, it should be filed by 26 September. ‘The court will then hear the conferencing inter-parties on 2 October. Thereafter, the outcome of the conferencing session will be forwarded to the head of the court for directions on the way forward ...’ the court’s conferencing notes. According to the petitioners, the Anti-Homosexuality Act alters a 2014 Constitutional Court decision which nullified a similar law and is, therefore, inconsistent with Article 92 of the Constitution. They argue that the Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed within a record period of six days instead of the 45-day period provided by parliamentary rules. ‘The expediency and speed with which the Anti Homosexuality Act was passed denied the people of Uganda exercise of their power and sovereignty in contravention of Articles 1 (1), (2) and (3) of the Constitution,’ the petition reads. The Attorney-General responded: ‘The provisions of the Anti-Homosexuality Act are not inconsistent with or in contravention with the provisions of the Constitution, international treaties, covenants, conventions and declarations.’

Several companies in the US, under the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (Agoa), have stopped buying textiles from Uganda, citing the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, President Yoweri Museveni revealed. ‘The homosexuals in the US are interfering with our export of textiles. Some of the orders have been cancelled there,’ Museveni said, according to the East African. ‘But I am not concerned about that because the money you have been squandering with the second-hand clothes, importing other people’s fabrics, is much more than what we are going to earn from the sales to the US,’ he added. Ellen Masi, the public affairs councillor at the US Mission in Kampala, said Washington had made it clear that the enactment of the anti-gay law would affect Uganda’s economic prospects. ‘On 28 March, more than 35 major multinational companies, including those with operations and employees in Uganda, released a statement highlighting the negative repercussions the anti-gay law will have on their ability to do business in Uganda,’ she said. According to her, nine out of every 10 of the Fortune 500 companies maintain non-discrimination policies on the basis of sexual orientation. ‘So, the enactment of the anti-gay law could deter foreign companies from doing business here in Uganda,’ Masi added.