The retired Supreme Court Judge Prof. George Kanyeihamba is set to petition President Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) challenging their move to scrap bail for capital offenders.
The right to bail is a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 23 (6) of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. Its basis is found in Article 28 of the same Constitution which states that an accused person is to be presumed innocent until he or she is proved or he or she pleads guilty.
Speaking earlier today, Prof. Kanyeihamba said Museveni wants to change the law so everybody is guilty until you prove that you are innocent yet the law says everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“If he really wants to remove the right to bail, President Museveni should first withdraw Uganda from all international treaties that guarantee bail globally,” he said adding “that the removal of bail is a violation of human rights of capital offenders.”
“I have done this on my will after consulting my family. NRM no longer governs Uganda under the law but rather by law and under guns,” he said.
At the commemoration of the late Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka in September , President Museveni said suspected murderers and rapists should not be released on bail.
“This issue of life imprisonment for people who have killed and the person you killed is not alive is not acceptable. It should be life for life,” Museveni said, adding the release of capital offenders is a provocation.
The president has since been seeking MPs support in line with scraping bail for capital offers at the moment when two of their members Makindye East MP Allan Ssewanyana and his counterpart Kawempe North MP Muhammad Ssegirinya are battling murder, terrorism, abetting and aiding terrorism.
