Government ordered to pay tortured journalist more than Shs260m

The High Court’s Civil Division has ordered government to give former WBS journalist Andrew Lwanga more than Shs260 million in both special and general damages as compensation for the assault by Mr Joram Mwesigye, the former Old Kampala District Police Commander.

Mr Lwanga was assaulted on January 12, 2015, on Namirembe Road in Kampala, when he was covering a demonstration by a group of unemployed youth, and damaged both his nervous system and camera.

After a trial that spanned more than two years and had four magistrates, Mr Mwesigye, in 2017, was convicted of assaulting Mr Lwanga but in punishing him, the then Buganda Road Court Grade One Magistrate, Ms Gladys Kamasanyu handed him a sentence to pay Shs6m, sparking off criticism from the media.

Dissatisfied, Mr Lwanga, through Kawanga & Kasule Advocates, took that battle to the civil court where he sought general, exemplary and/or punitive damages, special damages, interest on the medical expenses, transport and accommodation to the United States where he went for further treatment at 28 per annum from the date the sum shall be incurred till payment in full.

He also sought interest at 28 per annum on the cost of a caretaker and the loss of salary and allowances from January 3, 2016, till payment in full, costs of the suit, and any other relief that the court deems fit for the assault, false imprisonment, loss or deprivation of property occasioned to him by the police officers acting in the course of their employment.

During a court hearing on November 27, 2018, one of the doctors that examined Mr Lwanga at Mulago National Referral Hospital, told Justice Lydia Mugambe who presided over the case, that “Mr Lwanga suffered a degree of neurologic injuries which were permanent in nature and likely to have an impact on future ability to work,” the doctors concluded.

In her judgment on Thursday, while Justice Mugambe agreed with the Attorney General, who was attached as the only respondent, that the conduct exhibited by Mr Mwesigye is not the proper conduct expected of a policeman, the judgment did not buy into the State’s argument that the police officer’s conduct in this case was a frolic of his own to absolve the police of responsibility.

“It is, therefore, shallow for the defendant (Attorney General) to admit the claims in respect of only ASP Mwesigye and no other policemen in his company. I am convinced that in his illegal actions, Mr Mwesigye was in the company of other policemen. I am also satisfied that these policemen arrived at the scene in the normal exercise of their duty, to wit, quelling riots within Kampala city, but committed illegal actions,” Justice Mugambe ruled.

With that, Justice Mugambe who is now at the High Court’s Criminal Division, ordered the state to pay Mr Lwanga Shs18. 5 million as special damages for medical and food expenses incurred during his treatment and Shs250 million for the inconvenience, pain and suffering that Mr Lwanga went through and other added expenses that were not itemised in the plaint.