Writer: Asuman Bisiika. PHOTO/FILE
The recent Supreme Court determination that military courts are not competent enough to try civilians was welcomed by Ugandans with glee.
More than two weeks later, there is no tangible move to implement the Supreme Court determination. Save for the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Parliamentary Caucus, which recently had a meeting in which the Supreme Court judgment may have been discussed.
The question then is: how does the Judiciary feel when court judgments are not acted on? How many Ugandans share in the sense of dejection of the Judiciary? Count me among them; I stand with the Judiciary and four-time presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye.
What is the academic description or characterisation of such a scenario where the military does not honour and implement court judgments?
A State is the constitutive power of a polity (a people) with designated territorial limitations. A government is the administrative levers (or machinery) that functionalise or delivers or exercises the constituted powers of the state.
Because power is virtual, one in whom (or whose office) State power is vested, appoints people to exercise power on his behalf. This is called the government (or administrative structures) run or operated by the people appointed. In normal circumstances, the people managing government machinery must first constitute themselves into a cohesive party or group. Even military rulers constitute groups like Military Council, Military Commission et cetera.
Therefore, the management of the virtual power of the contemporary state is a group affair. The responsibility of the party or group managing state power (the so-called ruling party or people in power) is to run or supervise the structures of the government to achieve the objective for which they sought state power.
Because state power is about the people; the supreme leader (under whom the ruling party runs the government) holds power under a mandate of trusteeship. This trusteeship is limited by the regulatory independence of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary (the so-called three arms of government).
In Uganda, the three arms of government are a creature of the Constitution. Therefore, the State is actually the Constitution. And need I say, any disrespect or disregard of any constitutional issue is a matter of constitutional crisis. And a matter of constitutional crisis is a matter of a state in crisis.
The ruling party or group uses or runs or manages the government to deliver on the objectives and aspirations and inspiration of the people. Their ideas are rationalised by the Legislature (who code these ideas into laws) and regulated by the Judiciary (by scrutinising whether the ideas offend the Constitution (or not).
The ruling party or group doesn’t own government or the State or the Constitution. Neither does the ruling party or group own the services they deliver to the people through the levers of government.
Any use or manipulation of government machinery by the ruling party (outside the coded ambit of the trusteeship mandate) for selfish partisan gain or political advantage is criminal and treasonable.
Which is why I call on President Museveni, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, to appreciate the gravity of the brazen attitude of Uganda Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) towards the Supreme Court ruling.
We may appreciate the grave charges against Dr Besigye and his aide Obed Lutale. But limiting justice for Dr Besigye to trial in military court is quite curious and disturbing.
Between the Constitution and the UPDF, I choose the Constitution. I stand with Dr Kizza Besigye and Supreme Court. I stand with the Constitution.
Some people have been asking: ‘what is the strategic value of trying Besigye (least said of conviction) in a military court? Are we betting our legacy on the trial and conviction of one man?
The writer, Asuman Bisiika, is the executive editor of the East African Flagpost. [email protected]
