Govt legal advisors: Have a change of heart

Empty chairs set for the Supreme Court justices ahead of their ruling on the jurisdiction of the military court in trying civilians on January 31, 2025. PHOTO/ ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
The issue: Supreme Court ruling
Our view: Turning a blind eye to flaws such as keeping someone incarcerated without a valid warrant is akin to a trained doctor watching with a satisfied grin as a soldier conducts an operation on the wrong organ.
The ping pong over a seemingly straightforward Supreme Court ruling serves as a reminder of how the formal and rational-legal principles of the government’s bureaucracy have been eroded by political clientelism.
Last Friday, the country's apex court pronounced itself on the issue of civilians being tried in military tribunals. A red flag was raised in what can only be construed as an unequivocal manner.
In a functional democracy, there would have been no rope pulling over the court decision.
Yet here we are. Yesterday, the House heard that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has been “advised to liaise with the [General Court Martial] and the [Uganda People’s Defence Forces] to take over the conduct and ongoing criminal trials that have been identified for transfer.”
The Uganda Prisons' top brass as such has to wait for this process to reach a logical conclusion.
Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo made clear that all cases before military tribunals cease immediately.
The metaphor he used of a person that has not been to medical school feeling confident to wield a scalpel is as rich as it is instructive.
It is deeply disturbing that sections of affected Ugandans would undergo lifesaving operations under the supervision of a set of people that cannot tell a liver apart from a heart.
This disturbs the equilibrium of the government’s bureaucracy in troubling ways.
Even more troubling is how this, coming as it did after President Museveni offered his two cents on the Supreme Court decision, underscores the presidency's active penetration of the Executive, Legislative and judicial branches of government.
It also underlines the central place that the army has taken in our body politic. As well as building services upon which the citizenry bank on, they are now holding the hand of the Director of Public Prosecutions and her army of trained lawyers.
Turning a blind eye to flaws such as keeping someone incarcerated without a valid warrant is akin to a trained doctor watching with a satisfied grin as a soldier conducts an operation on the wrong organ.
If these developments do not worry you, we do not know what will.
It is against this background that we condemn the developments. May sanity prevail. The powers that be should, excuse the pun, have a change of heart.