The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Justice Mike Chibita, has pledged to continue recommending protective legal environment and revision of laws, policies and practices that promote stigmatises HIV positive peoples, leading to challenges in the fight against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB).
In 2014, the Parliament of Uganda enacted HIV and Aids Prevention and Control Act which criminalizes people who intentionally infect others with HIV/AIDS. However UGANET has always stood up against some provisions of the law contending that section 18 (e) that authorizes a medical practitioner to reveal HIV results to any other person with whom an HIV infected person is in close contact, including sexual partner, infringes on client’s rights to privacy.
Prior to petitioning of Constitutional Court challenging sections of the Act, Dora Musinguzi Kiconco, the Executive Director of UGANET said that Section 41 on attempted transmission of HIV and Section 43 on intentional transmission of HIV should be repealed in favour of Section 171 of the Penal Code Act.
Speaking at the national launch of the response to human rights based approach to fast track the end of aids in the criminal justice system, Chibita said DPP is aware of the public concerns about Section 129 (3) and (4) (b) of the Penal Code Act as amended and Sections 18, 41 and 43 of the HIV and Prevention Act 2015, “I am hesitant to comment on these sections since there is a matter before the Constitutional court pertaining to these same.”
“As an organization we realize that overly broad criminalization of HIV transmission is ineffective, sometimes discriminatory and does not support efforts to prevent new HIV infections and neither does it support our organizational output.” He said
Alluding to the Geneva Human Rights report dated the 13th June 2019; the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled to remove the section of the criminal code that criminalizes HIV and Hepatitis B transmission, he said: “DPP is not far from this position; we have embarked on plea bargaining which directly benefits the prisoners living with HIV among others and just last month we launched a policy to protect the rights of the victim, the witness and the accused person.”
“At the time of making our laws in relation to HIV many scientific advances were not yet made. We pay close attention to the significant advances in HIV science to ensure that science informs the application of criminal law in cases related to HIV. With all the new scientific advances available, we need to continue to use science as evidence to deliver justice,” Chibita added.
According to the Amsterdam/Geneva human rights report of 25 July 2018, around 73 countries have laws that criminalize HIV non-disclosure, exposure or transmission, and 39 countries have applied other criminal law provisions in similar cases across the globe.
The law is the only human rights issue that needs to be addressed in order for us to achieve prevention, uptake and retention for eradication of HIV and TB in the criminal justice system at 95 per cent by 2030.
“It is the ODPP’s desire that witnesses even if they are HIV positive would attend court freely and victims would find the expected protection in the system and the accused would equally find a friendly environment. An enabling environment for all to be able to take medicine at appropriate time should do away with intermittent sicknesses that in turn frustrate the cases,” Chibita said.
“I therefore call upon each of us to add their efforts in supporting our HIV/AIDS Committee to accomplish this noble work.”
