{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Will Mbabazi take govt to court for implementing laws he helped - Commentary
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Will Mbabazi take govt to court for implementing laws he helped
If the defining features of [senseless] violence include destruction of life and property, unfair self-enrichment, denigration of others' honour, I want to suggest that we think about corruption as a form of violence.
Journalist Andrew Mwenda has been on rampage in recent weeks shouting down critics of corruption as being influenced by sheer and baseless morality and not a yearning for clean economic growth.
Through several channels, Mwenda has variously made this case. However, it was in his August 29 piece in Saturday Monitor, "Putting Corruption in Perspective" where he attempted to properly contextualise his thesis.
Here, he cited more and more, contradicting himself, and confusing readers in effect. But let's try to pick the scattered threads of his symphony.
Speaking in Soroti after his consultative rally had been stopped by the police, former prime minister and now presidential aspirant, Amama Mbabazi, said he knew the law, that he had personally enacted it (while he was prime minister) and that what the police had done was 'unlawful'.
On the other hand, a police officer who was in charge said he had received the orders to stop the rally from Kampala. The Electoral Commission said consultative meetings by presidential aspirants were supposed to be held in-doors and not out-doors in open spaces.
If I may recall, Mr Mbabazi who once acted as attorney general proposed many amendments to the then existing laws despite protests by the Opposition and columnists like myself that those amendments were covered by the penal code, that they were not even necessary and should be scrapped.
The bloggers told him frankly that one day, after he has fallen from power, he might find himself being charged under the same laws he was championing. Such laws included one involving telephone tapping and the Public Order Management Act (POMA), but Mbabazi refused to listen.
Those like Mbabazi who supported his oppressive laws referred the Opposition to the law courts, pointing out that they could always appeal to the courts in event of disputes.
Because there was already talk that the judicial system was corrupt, that the judges and lawyers were accepting bribes to decide cases in favour of clients, the Opposition remained skeptical.
Mbabazi took advantage of the ruling regime's majority in Parliament to pass whichever law he proposed.
Mbabazi's supporters in the crowded municipality of Mbale cheered him the other day when he was at last allowed to address a mammoth rally there, but those who turned up to give him a similar and probably bigger reception in Soroti went home with red eyes after the police dispersed them with teargas.
In return, some civilians in the crowd were also seen throwing missiles that included stones at the law officers.
Election officials have explained that Presidential aspirants will be told when they can start campaigning after the Commission has declared them presidential candidates.
This will happen after they have completed and returned the forms they were issued, accompanied by the regulatory cash deposits.
Before that, aspirants are not allowed to display election materials such as posters, but it would appear that they are already doing so.
The Electoral Commission may have to explain whether some candidates are more equal than others.
Meanwhile, if Mr Mbabazi feels his rights as an aspirant and eventual presidential candidate are being violated, he should evoke the laws he put in place while he was in power and sue the government for such violations.
His problems as I see them are many. Now that he has declared 'it is time for change', will he, for example, continue to co-operate with the existing institutions like the army, the police, the law courts and other systems he helped in setting up but now believes are imperfect?
The public is watching his every move to prove whether he means what he preaches, that he can really deliver change.
Mr Kiwanuka is a journalist, retired Foreign Service Officer and author.jkiwanuka700@gmail.com
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