Standoff over military courts ruling
Publish date: 03 February 2025
Issue Number: 1111
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Constitutional
A constitutional crisis looms in Uganda where President Yoweri Museveni has slammed last week’s watershed judgment by Uganda’s highest court finding that courts martial had no jurisdiction over civilians and that all such trials had to stop immediately. Evidence of the extent and determination of the military’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court orders will emerge this week when the general court martial trying a significant political opponent of Museveni is due to reconvene. Based on the Supreme Court’s orders, lawyers for Kizza Besigye will demand his immediate release by the military. However, Carmel Rickard notes in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site that weekend statements by the military and Museveni in response to the judgment, indicate that they could well refuse to release Besigye: Museveni declared that the court was ‘wrong’ in its finding and that ‘the country is not governed by the judges’. Further, an official statement by the top military spokesperson, Colonel Chris Magezi, said that the general court martial would ‘under no circumstances’ release Besigye ‘until he faces the full extent of martial law’.