Kakuru is gone, but which justice should have crossed the Jordan first?

Author: Gawaya Tegulle. PHOTO/NMG

What you need to know:

  • ‘‘You never caught lawyers talking about him with disrespect or disdain" 

Two things cannot be denied. One, the way the legal fraternity and, in fact, the nation is mourning the passing of Justice of Appeal Kenneth Kakuru, you’d be excused to think he’s the first judge ever to cross the River Jordan. Two, consensus among the lawyers seems to be that the wrong judge went. So question is; which Justice of Appeal – look through the current panel carefully – should have gone first? Which of them could have gone and elicited nothing more than “how sad…er, pass me that thingy on the what-s-it, will ya!” or even a sardonic smile with “and about time too!” written all over it?  


These are the exact questions that were visited upon our family on the March 7, 2022, when my elder sister, Rose Gawaya, went to be with the Lord, ‘without sufficient notice’ it must be said, a phrase every lawyer will instantly recognise.
Almost every family has its flag-bearer, its celebrity, its shining star; the pride of the parents, the child every parent in the neighbourhood wishes was theirs. That was Rose: with a PhD under her belt, a shining career in the international community and a name well-respected in the United Nations circles. You looked at her and saw good reason why girls should go to school. And Rose, who had settled in Pretoria, South Africa, was the big sister that everyone ought to have; she spared nothing to help us succeed. So when she drove herself to St Louise in Pretoria, for a casual medical check-up, we had no reason to fear, since we were even chatting on the phone.
While it was (and still is) generally agreed that all of us will die sometime, general consensus, amongst those who knew our family was that the wrong person had died – especially given the way Rose’s death tore her parents to pieces. 
Even we, Rose’s siblings thought the wrong person had died. Question then was: which one amongst the Gawaya kids should have died? If the Lord had asked us that question, before taking her, the answer would have been simple: Not Rose, please.

 Let the record reflect that I’d have happily taken her place. But see, the great God Almighty doesn’t hold a referendum before taking people away. If he did, certain names would be ticked just about every day – ‘you know warram sayin’, don’t ya?
By now you can understand what I felt when, on the anniversary of my sister’s demise, March 7, 2023, news broke that Justice Kakuru was gone. Same questions! And I wasn’t alone. If the Lord had asked Ugandan lawyers which Justice of Appeal should go home, in all likelihood, most every lawyer, after making lengthy submissions in lots of good English and accompanied by loads of paperwork, stacked in piles, Male Mabirizi style, would have told the Lord: not Justice Kakuru!

And it wouldn’t be that they like the other judges less; or wish them dead. Nope. It is just that at times like these, difficult questions come up. Justice Kakuru was a very, very special judge. You never caught lawyers talking about him with disrespect or disdain. If you stood before Kakuru, you knew you were standing before “a judge in whom there is no guile” – to borrow from the Lord’s description of Nathaniel in the Bible. 
Win or lose, you knew you got a fair crack of the whip. He was a judge money could not buy and political pressure could never intimidate. And in a dispensation where the Judiciary is under political siege by the powers that be, and is, therefore, operating in a less than ideal spectrum where the ruling junta demands decisions that are politically correct, Justice Kakuru was firm and unyielding. 

He was a man not afraid to be different or to stand alone. Little wonder, therefore, that when the Constitutional Court sat to decide the fate of President Museveni, in the famous age limit petition, Justice Kakuru was not shy or afraid to stand his ground and (rightfully, it must be said) proclaim that it was wrong …and unconstitutional to lift the age limit. Rest thou in peace, my lord, Justice Kenneth Kakuru: will there ever be another you?

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda