Rukutana vs Bamugemereire: Uncharitable, indignant duel

Last week TV cameras momentarily rested on an unsavoury exchange between Nicholas Mwesigwa Rukutana, the Deputy Attorney General and his student Justice Catherine Bamugemereire, the chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry into land matters. The exchange did not reach the levels of the dressing down of Lands minister Betty Amongi before the same Commission last year, the minister who almost spilled her drink on her dress under hot questioning.

In government, the consensus is that the Commission has outlived its usefulness. Finance is critical of its astronomical cost, commissioners are paid at a special rate far above what is available at the top jobs in the public service, more than the Speaker (35m), the Chief Justice (20m) and other high profile jobs, head UNRA (40m), URA (40m), ED KCCA (50m).

Second, is the Commission’s limited powers to take action against impugned and accused persons. The Commission enjoys the prerogatives of the High Court to summon witnesses, but does not have prosecutorial powers, which are a preserve of the IGG and the DPP.
The IGG’s powers to prosecute have withered a number of court rulings since inception. The second arm of IGG, the Leadership Code Tribunal, has never taken off for the same reasons that have hampered the Land Commission of Inquiry.

Third there are some major chain of command issues. The Commission of Inquiry is appointed by the President. However, in government business, its responsibilities are overseen by a Cabinet department, which should be the Minister of Lands, where the Minister Betty Amongi was rolled over charcoal for alleged impropriety in allocating herself and her business partners’ property belonging to the Departed Asians Custodian Board.

All the preparatory work she did serenading top lawyers, officials of Mengo prior to her appearance, were swept like a hurricane when she assumed the hot seat. In the absence of that minister, it is the Minister of Justice, who has some say over this Commission. It is a quasi-judicial body headed by a sitting Justice of the Court of Appeal.

This ministry must have a policy in place to regulate the conduct, tenure and decorum of these inquiries. Ministries have a constitutional prerogative to make policy under the Constitution which in turn are adopted by Cabinet and implemented by the President. That said, the Attorney General, who is entitled as a matter of law to much deference by the courts, made a poor effort to answer questions put to him arising out of a valid complaint alleging overpayment to a registered proprietor of a disputed piece of land.

President Museveni is smiling. He enjoys the ping-pong game at the Commission. On the one hand, he knows the Commission cannot touch the sacred cows where massive tracts of land have changed hands at a scale not seen since the arrival of British rule in Uganda in the 1890s.
On the other hand, the toothless Commission is very popular. The public fed up with corruption and mismanagement in the land sector, is tirelessly knocking at the Commission to report cases of land malfeasance.

The Judiciary is a neutered bystander. The Land Division for years has been rocked by allegations of insider dealing.
One Judge actually went to court and won damages for missing out on a promotion due to a plethora of allegations (unproved) against him. Third member of that coram was Bamugemereire ,who sits on the Court of Appeal/Constitutional Court.

During the brouhaha that followed the Lusanja evictions, rich people in town thought it ideal to pin Justice Bamugemereire because her sister, a magistrate, had issued the eviction order in disregard of the guidelines on land evictions. This is a very naïve view of how the system works.
The Judge has another sister Beatrice Khainza, who did a very good job cleaning up the Family Division. This is not the first or last time big people do a good job appointing family to offices in government.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law
and an Advocate. [email protected]