Since July 23, Uganda’s Gen Z citizens have held peaceful anti-corruption protests, demanding a number of wholesale changes, including: the resignation of the Speaker of Parliament and other corrupt members of parliament (MPs); a lifestyle audit of all MPs; and a reduction in their salaries and allowances. Such protests are a hallmark of a free and democratic society. And logic demands that these voices be heard by the authorities.
Instead, Gen Z protesters, and those who joined them on the streets, were brutally suppressed by the police and the military who pulled protesters into unmarked vans and tortured them, even in the face of public condemnation. These recent developments have brought the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and demonstration to the forefront of public debates in Uganda.
The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and demonstration is governed by various laws in Uganda that determine the true extent to which the right, as defined in the Constitution, is exercised by the people. Article 29 of the constitution guarantees the right of freedom to assemble and demonstrate peacefully and unarmed. However, this right is not absolute and is subject to certain limitations under Article 43, which is imposed to protect the enjoyment of rights by others and the public interest. The framers of our constitution foresaw probable abuse of rights under the guise of protecting the enjoyment of rights by others and public interest, and created further limitations under clause (2) (c) of Article 43, which sets out ‘a limitation upon the limitations’ when it dictates that limitations of enjoyment of rights should not go beyond what is demonstrably justifiable in a free society. This clause presupposes the existence of universal democratic values to which every free and democratic society adheres. It also emphasizes the fact that, according to the constitution, Uganda is a democratic state that is fully committed, in practice, to adhering to universal principles.
Despite constitutional protections, however, there exists a web of subordinate laws that dilute the protection of basic rights. For example, parliament enacted the Public Order Management Act to ‘regulate’ public meetings, which has turned out to be a convenient tool of the state to curtail the right to protest under the guise of ‘safeguarding public order.’ On July 18, the police summoned organizers of the recent anti-corruption protests and informed them that they would not allow demonstrations to take place on the pretext that some ‘wrong elements’ wanted to use the gatherings to disrupt public order and incite violence. Likewise, the Police Act gives broad powers to a police officer to, among others, prevent what they vaguely define as ‘public nuisances’ without defining what exactly that offense is. While there is no such thing as public nuisance in the Penal Code Act, the related offence is common nuisance contrary to section 160 (1) of the Penal Code Act. From July 23-24, over forty peaceful protesters were charged with common nuisance for allegedly causing inconvenience to the public.
In sum, it is manifestly obvious that the state is using subordinate laws as convenient tools at their disposal to both curtail and criminalize the right to peacefully protest.
The process by which the Ugandan state justifies limitations on the right to peacefully protest is contingent upon the value it attaches to it. Indeed, there is a disturbing trend of increasing pressure and growing intolerance towards the right to protest, where inconvenience to the public caused by peaceful protests receives greater attention than the protection and promotion of universal human rights. The Ugandan state has – under the guise of safeguarding public order – all too frequently abridged the right to peacefully protest. For example, on the eve of the peaceful anti-corruption protests this month, the president warned protesters that they were ‘playing with fire.’
Such unreasonable limitations on peaceful protest by the state is an affront to the very people in whose name the state is allowed to temporarily govern. It is the fundamental rights that are fundamental, not the limitations. The Ugandan state has thus blurred the line between the constitutionally guaranteed ‘right to freedom of peaceful assembly and demonstration’ and ‘criminal activity.’ If such blurring is not checked, democracy in Uganda simply does not exist.
Bwambale Asiimwe Micheal is a human rights lawyer working with the Refugee Law Project-Center for Forced Migrants, at Makerere University School of Law, under the Access to Justice Program. Follow on Twitter: @MicBwambale
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.
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