{UAH} A SPEAKER SHOULD COME FROM INDEPENDENTS- I THINK

Speaker Kadaga's partisan leadership office, as NRM Vice Chairperson , poses a threat to the integrity and impartiality to the Office and Role of Speaker of Parliament.

The Speaker of Parliament as a public officer, is under a constitutional duty to discharge her official duties impartially and to avoid the appearance of bias and impropriety.

The constitutional duty of impartiality is specified in Article 233(b)(i) of the present Constitution of Uganda 1995 (as amended), which precisely states : "the Leadership Code of Conduct shall prohibit conduct likely to compromise the honesty, impartiality and integrity of specified officers."

It is clear the Speaker Kadga is under legal obligation to perform her official duties with honesty, impartiality and integrity, save for her forced service in the partisan political position of NRM Vice Chairperson, which has the negative effect of placing her in a situation of being perceived, as contravening the rule of bias (in particular that of not judging a matter involving one's own interests), a key element in the notion of procedural fairness.

The absolute political impartiality of the Speaker is a deeply entrenched feature of parliamentary democracy. Speakers must be politically neutral. Therefore, on election the new Speaker Kadaga must have resigned from her political party office as NRM vice chairperson and remained separate from partisan political issues. However, the Speaker would deal with her Kamuli constituent's problems like a normal elected MP.

Her current partisan leadership office, as NRM vice chairperson, poses a threat to the integrity and impartiality to the Office and Role of Speaker of Parliament . The Speakership has been described as the heart of the parliamentary system, and (poetically) "the linch–pin of the whole chariot." Apart from reflecting the prestige and authority of the position, these descriptions point to the key role the Speaker plays in the healthy functioning of parliamentary democracy. This purpose is woven into the tenets of the Speakership, and is evident in the Speaker's role as Presiding Officer of the House.


The final test of the Speaker's impartiality in the Chair is how one is perceived by one's colleagues in the House. The key to the test of bias is public perception of the possibility of unconscious bias. In accordance with test of apparent bias, set out in the House of Lord's judgement in Porter v Magill [2002], "whether a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the given facts, would conclude that there is a real possibility that the Speaker was or is biased, in favour of one party, against the other. If the Speaker is unable to demonstrate by action and behaviour that she is fair and neutral and impartial, then nothings else matters.

The essential argument for non-partisanship is that the Speaker must not only be impartial, but must be perceived to be impartial – and that any type of partisan leadership office or connection will make this unlikely if not impossible.

The Speaker for Parliament should be politically impartial to in order to fulfil her duty as an impartial arbiter. There is in fact an implied contract between Members and the Speaker based on a clear understanding that the considerable powers a House gives to a Speaker will not be abused, that no favouritism to one side or the other will be shown. That is not in question. The parliamentary tradition of impartiality in the Speakership is so strong that everyone accepts that once an MP is elected the new Speaker, he or she will renounce his/her party allegiance and become genuinely independent.

Once elected the Speaker must not only resign from his or her political party, but must even resign from any clubs which have political affiliations.
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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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