The Anti-Corruption court: Where the rich meet justice

If there is a place you can see how the rich live, the Anti-Corruption court is it. The accused tend to come with expensive cars, flashy gadgetry and crowds that are not badly off themselves.

The small matter of Bad Black
But if ever a Ugandan court became a showbiz attraction, then the embezzlement case that involved Shanita Namuyimbwa, aka Bad Black and Meddie Ssentongo, was it. She had already built herself the public image of a Kampala socialite, by the time court proceedings against her started.

The showy flamboyance she exhibited in Kampala’s nightspots now shifted to the courthouse. In she would drive, in any of her fleet of luxury cars, particularly, an Audi Quantum 7. Her dress sense did not seem to take notice of the fact that she was headed to a courtroom.

She wore high heels, so high they threatened to throw her pregnant body over to the other side. And then, there were the clothes, clothes so tightly fitting they made her bulging belly threaten to tear them apart. There was the hair, so wild at times it looked like an illustration of the fibrous root system. Bad Black ensured to make a fashion statement every time she made it to court.

Then there was her band of supporters. At times, the courtroom felt like Bad Black had ferried her alumni from the Speke Road School of hard knocks, all the way into court.

They were easy to spot in the court. The lipstick was always a glowing red, the dresses and skirts hardly ever reached the knees and the pants seemed to be glued to the skin. Every so often, one girl would receive a call, halfway through a court session, and then rattle her high heels across the floor, drawing all attention to her.

And of course, there was Meddie Ssentongo. To compliment his suits, he wore sunglasses to achieve a mimicked Hollywood look, even into the courtroom where the sunshine did not reach.

Kutesa, Nassasira and Rukutana
In the end, looking at the heavy shots who have been humbled before a judge who is not even a tenth as rich as they are, forced to prove their case in a temple of justice, seems to offer solace in the face of the adage that the rich never face justice.

There may be reservations in this case; questions about whether real justice is meted out against the rich and powerful or whether it is simple window dressing. In the cases against Minister John Nasasira, Sam Kutesa and Mwesigwa Rukutana for instance, the presiding judge dismissed the case and blamed the prosecution of doing a shoddy job of assembling evidence against the accused.

Still, there was no denying the humbling effect of watching rich and powerful cabinet ministers yawn, stretch, and wipe sweat from their faces for hours on end before a judge.

In a society where wealth creation, especially through crooked means, is often celebrated and not questioned, becoming a one-way ticket into the realm where the law does not reign, the anti-corruption court has acted as a reassuring symbol that the law also catches rich people.

It is the reassurance that poor people need to know that the law does not only target the poor. Even if it maybe window dressing, at least it is a form of justice. It could be worse.

jabimanyi@ug.nationmedia.com