Tabloid ordered to pay Shs83 million to Tooro Queen Mother

Justice Musa Ssekaana has awarded the Tooro Kingdom Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, Shs 83 million in damages arising from a defamation suit she filed against Red Pepper Publications Limited.

The suit stemmed from a May 24^th 2012 article titled: “Tooro Queen Mother Arrested in USA".

 Through Candia D.W Oundo Advocates, Ms Kemigisa argued that the article carried malicious statements that indicated that she had been arrested in United States in possession of fake dollars. She said that Red Pepper maliciously wrote that her passport had been confiscated as the Federal Police investigated circumstances under which she came to possess counterfeits worth $5 million (Shs18.5 billion).    

She told court that a day later, the tabloid authored another story titled: "Queen Mother still Missing”, where they claimed that they had exclusively established that Ms Kemigisa was briefly detained by Federal Police in the US, adding that her arrest would cause a diplomatic embarrassment since she is a member of diplomatic community.

 Ms Kemigisa also said that on June 6th, 2012, Red Pepper again published another story titled:  “Tooro Queen Mother Arrest Details Emerge".

She contended that the said statements were false and intended to malign her good repute and her social standing.

Ms Kemigisa informed court that the defamatory statements made her to suffer hatred, contempt and embarrassment, which lowered her standing in the eyes of right thinking members of society generally, and her peers in particular.

She asked court to compel Red Pepper to compensate her Shs1 billion in damages, apologise to her and issue a permanent order restraining the publication against defaming her again.

During the hearing, Red Pepper Publications, through Okua Associate Advocates asked court to dismiss the case, saying the Queen Mother refused to appear in court for cross examination on the accuracy of her allegations.

They also argued that no one would be alarmed if they only read the headlines of the articles without reading details of the stories.

The lawyers said that if one read the story beyond the headlines, they would have found that the story was a professional coverage of an event as relayed by Uganda intelligence and security forces.

The publication argued that the remedies Ms Kemigisa was seeking were excess and exposed her true intentions of unjustly wanting to enrich herself and abuse the due process, to shield her from further public scrutiny.

The publication’s lawyers said that the Shs1 billion Ms Kemigisa was demanding was extortionist compared to other recent awards in similar cases.

Delivering his judgment on Friday, Justice Ssekaana stated that he had reviewed the evidence and submissions of both parties and resolved that Ms Kemigisa suffered damage to her reputation. 

He, however, said the reward of Shs1 billion was exorbitant as argued by Red Pepper lawyers.

He, therefore, granted her general damages of Shs72 million and Shs11 million in punitive damages as a punishment to Red Pepper not to repeat a similar mistake and discourage them from publishing any further defamatory statements against the Queen Mother.  

He said the awards would attract a 10 percent interest from the day of the judgment until final payment is made.

Justice Ssekaana directed Red Pepper to apologise to the Queen Mother in a period not less than three weeks, adding that the apology should be published twice in one week.

He also issued a permanent injunction against the tabloid, its agents and assignees from publishing defamatory statements against Ms Kemigisa.