When the National Resistance Movement Army captured Kampala in 1986, it carried with it a Ten-Point Programme that sang of democracy, human rights and the erasure of extrajudicial killings.

The combatants of Luwero Triangle had emerged from the bush with promises to sweep away the “swine” who had misgoverned Uganda – a term President Tibuhaburwa Museveni deployed with characteristic pungency to describe the very rulers whose methods would, decades later, find comfortable accommodation in the state house on Entebbe Road.

Yet beneath this emancipatory rhetoric lay a mission that extended beyond Uganda’s borders: the capture of Kigali and the restoration of instruments of power to Tutsi rulers who had fought alongside their Ugandan counterparts in the Luwero Bush.

This transnational ambition, long whispered in the corridors of power, would eventually cast a long shadow over the constitutional promises made to the people of Uganda.

The new rulers, to hoodwink Ugandans, set about crafting a Constitution that would enshrine their Twenty Principles – an elaboration of the original ten. The 1995 Constitution emerged as a document of profound contradiction: it declared that all power and resources belonged to the people of Uganda, yet it placed that power in the hands of a single individual. It created a parliament, yet failed to delink the National Resistance Movement from the renamed Uganda People’s Defence Forces; it recognised traditional rulers, yet rendered them powerless spectators in their own kingdoms.

These architectural flaws – the concentration of power in the presidency, the fusion of party and army, the hollowing out of traditional authority – would transform the Ten-Point Programme into what it has become: a paper tiger whose roars now echo only in state-controlled media while its teeth sink into the flesh of Ugandans who dare to organise in alternative political formations.

The story of military trials of civilians is not merely a story about jurisdiction or legal procedure. It is the story of how the Constitution’s design flaws have matured into instruments of repression; how the army and the presidency have emerged as the principal eroders of human rights, freedoms, democracy, and justice; and how the unstable stability we witness today – the peace of the graveyard, the security of the barracks – cannot survive beyond President Museveni and the personalist NRM that has become indistinguishable from the man who leads it.

This treatise dwells on one violation among many: the trial of civilians before military courts. But in doing so, it illuminates the entire architecture of constitutional decay. For in the military court, we see in microcosm everything that has gone wrong with Uganda’s governance: the subordination of law to power, the fusion of civilian and military authority, the manipulation of institutions, and the gradual, grinding erasure of the Ugandan citizen as a rights-bearing subject.

The treatise is both wide-ranging and pertinent. The breadth of the treatise mirrors the breadth of the problem: Military trials of civilians do not stand alone. They are fed by the same currents that produce:

• Manipulation of the parliament of Uganda
• Subordination of the judiciary of Uganda
• Suppression of intellectual life
• Digital Surveillance of the citizens
• Kidnapping of the opponents of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) while deceptively insisting that they do not exist
• Following of citizenship itself

To address only the legal question – whether Section 119 of the UPDF Act 2025 violates Article 27 – would be to miss the forest for the trees. The forest is constitutionalism itself. The trees are the violations.

The treatise is pertinent. We must decide! Will we be a country governed by law or by men? Will we accept the slow? normalisation of military power over civilian life, or will we demand the restoration of the constitutional order?

Constitutional architecture of a contradiction: Drafting history and its buried truths

The 1995 Constitution emerged from the Constituent Assembly debates with a curious silence on the status of courts martial. Unlike the constitutions of Botswana or Lesotho, which explicitly define the relationship between military courts and civilian judiciaries, Uganda’s foundational document left the question hanging. Article 129(1) establishes the courts of judicature – Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court and such subordinate courts as parliament may establish – but made no mention of military tribunals.

Article 120(3) (b) empowered the director of public prosecutions to institute proceedings “in any court with competent jurisdiction other than a court martial,” implying that military courts existed but occupied a separate sphere. Article 210 required Parliament to make laws regulating the organs of the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces.

This constitutional ambiguity was no accident. During the constituent assembly, delegates grappled with fundamental questions: Were courts martial courts of judicature within the meaning of Article 129 or were they disciplinary organs falling under Article 210? Did they have jurisdiction over civilians? Over non-service offences?

The drafting history reveals that delegates agreed courts martial were indeed courts of judicature – but the history is maddeningly silent on whether they could try civilians.

What the delegates did agree upon was that the right to a fair hearing, guaranteed by Article 28, must extend to military proceedings. They insisted that before a court martial imposed sentence – particularly the death sentence – there must be “due process as provided for in the Constitution.” They warned against “cases of arbitrary deprivation of life in military courts,” drawing on historical experience that in military tribunals, “due process as stipulated in the Constitution is not strictly adhered to”.

The army representatives pushed back. While conceding that constitutional guarantees should apply, they drew a distinction between “courts” under Article 129 and “disciplinary courts or service courts.” The latter, they argued, required expeditious proceedings to maintain “operation efficiency.”

This distinction – between justice and discipline, between rights and efficiency – would prove fateful.

UPDF Act and its creeping jurisdiction

When parliament enacted the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces Act in 2005, it claimed to be acting under Article 210 – regulating the organs of the defence forces. The long title of the law made no mention of Article 129 or the establishment of courts of judicature. Yet the law proceeded to create courts martial with jurisdiction over civilians.

Section 119(1) defined “persons subject to military law” to include not only serving officers but also:

(g) every person, not otherwise subject to military law, who aids or abets a person subject to military law in the commission of a service offence.”

(h) every person found in unlawful possession of: (i) arms, ammunition or equipment ordinarily being the monopoly of the Defence Forces; or (ii) other classified stores as prescribed.”

These provisions, innocuous in their drafting, opened the door to a systematic expansion of military jurisdiction. The General Court Martial was empowered to try civilians for offences ranging from unlawful possession of firearms to treason – offences with no necessary connection to military service or discipline.

The constitutional question was obvious: Could parliament, acting under Article 210, confer on military courts a jurisdiction that the Constitution itself did not contemplate? The drafting history suggested not. The delegates had understood courts martial as disciplinary bodies for soldiers, not parallel justice systems for civilians. Yet the UPDF Act proceeded as if this history did not exist.

Jurisprudence of resistance: Constitutional court’s landmark ruling

In 2015, more than 100 civilians, led by Captain (retired) Amon Byarugaba Hasibu Kasiita and Mathias Rugira, petitioned the Constitutional Court. Their argument was simple and profound: military courts were trying civilians in contravention of the Constitution. These courts, they contended, lacked the independence and impartiality required by Article 28. They were empanelled by non-lawyers who struggled with complex evidentiary issues. Civilians charged before them were only allowed military lawyers whose allegiance lay with the armed forces.

The attorney general opposed the petition, arguing that Section 119(1) did not create offences but merely delineated persons subject to military law. The General Court Martial, he contended, had unlimited jurisdiction to try civil offences within the confines of the Act.

In December 2022, the Constitutional Court delivered its judgment. In a majority decision of three to two, the justices held that under the 1995 Constitution, trying civilians is the role of civilian courts of judicature. Justice Elizabeth Musoke, writing the lead judgment, declared:

“I would declare that the UPDF Act, 2005 to the extent that it may be understood as conferring jurisdiction on military courts to try civilians is unconstitutional and therefore null and void.”

The court ordered that all pending criminal cases involving civilians before military courts be immediately transferred to competent civilian courts and taken over by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

However, in a concession that would prove significant, the court validated convictions and sentences passed prior to its judgment. Future trials of civilians by military courts would be “invalid, null and void.”

Justices Kenneth Kakuru and Geoffrey Kiryabwire concurred. The Deputy Chief Justice and Justice Monica Mugenyi dissented. The court martial, the majority held, was intended as a disciplinary court for the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces – nothing more.

Supreme Court landmark decision

On January 31, 2025, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in the Kabaziguruka case, affirming and strengthening the Constitutional Court’s ruling. Chief Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, writing for the majority, held that military courts lack jurisdiction to try civilians. Their structure and procedures, he found, violate the constitutional guarantees of a fair hearing and access to independent and impartial courts.

The chief justice’s reasoning cut to the heart of the matter. Military courts, he observed, derive their authority from the military high command, not from the judiciary. They lack the structural independence required by the Constitution. To illustrate the absurdity of military jurisdiction over civilians, he offered a memorable analogy:

“Imagine me, the Chief Justice of Uganda, who has never done any military training, leading a battlefield and defending the country against an enemy.”

The court ordered all ongoing criminal trials of civilians before military courts to cease immediately. All affected cases were to be transferred to ordinary courts of law with competent jurisdiction. The provisions of the UPDF Act establishing military courts, the court held, do not contain sufficient constitutional safeguards to ensure independence and impartiality as required under Articles 21, 28(1), 44(c), and 128(1) of the Constitution.

Justice Catherine Bamugemereire, one of the seven judges, declared the military court a “military tribunal” lacking constitutional authority to try civilians. Its structure and procedures, she ruled, violate the principles of fairness and impartiality enshrined in the constitution. When soldiers commit offences against civilians, she added, they should be tried in civil courts.

The ruling was unambiguous, authoritative and final. Or so it seemed.

Chief justice on courage and conscience

In September 2025, addressing the Eigth Benedicto Kiwanuka Memorial Lecture, Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo reflected on the ruling. He had no patience, he said, for suggestions that he needed courage to decide as he did. For him, it was never about bravery. It was about the law, and the oath he took to uphold it.

“I never required even an iota of courage to interpret the Constitution versus the UPDF Act. No courage at all.”

He pushed back against the very framing of judicial decision-making as an act of courage. To him, the late Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka – abducted and murdered by Idi Amin’s soldiers in 1972 – was not a man who summoned courage to defy power. He was a man who stood by his oath. The idea that courage is necessary, Owiny-Dollo argued, implies that judges must weigh their decisions against fear or pressure. That misses the point.

“If it requires a judge to be courageous to render justice, that is very dangerous.”

The courage a judge would need, he suggested, would be to come up with a ruling contrary to the law. By this standard, the Supreme Court’s judgment was not courageous – it was simply faithful.

Yet even as the chief justice spoke, the impact of his ruling remained uncertain. While the Supreme Court had ordered the military to halt all ongoing civilian trials and transfer cases to civilian courts, many suspects remained in detention. And in parliament, forces were already mobilising to undo what the court had done.

Legislature’s revenge

UPDF (Amendment) Act 2025

In May 2025, parliament passed the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (Amendment) Act. President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law in June. The Act reinstated the military’s authority to try civilians in certain circumstances.

The amendment appeared to address some of the Supreme Court’s concerns. It provided that those presiding over military tribunals should have relevant legal qualifications and training. It stated that while performing their judicial functions, they should be independent and impartial. But the substance remained: civilians could still be tried by military courts if found with military hardware, or if accused of aiding or abetting soldiers in the commission of service offences.

The government’s justification was framed in terms of security and efficiency. Army spokesperson Col Chris Magezi wrote on X: “The law will deal decisively with armed violent criminals, deter the formation of militant political groups that seek to subvert democratic processes, and ensure national security is bound on a firm foundational base. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

President Museveni had earlier described the Supreme Court’s verdict as the “wrong decision,” adding that “the country is not governed by the judges. It is governed by the people.” He defended military courts as necessary to deal with “rampant activities of criminals and terrorists that were using guns to kill people indiscriminately.” Civilian courts, he argued, were too busy to “handle these gun-wielding criminals quickly.”

Mechanics of defiance

How did parliament purport to override a Supreme Court ruling? The mechanism was straightforward: legislation. Parliament, exercising its power under Article 79 to “make laws on any matter for the peace, order, development and good governance of Uganda,” simply amended the UPDF Act to reinstate military jurisdiction.

The MP for Ajuri County Hamson Obua Denis wrote to NRM caucus members convening them to support the Attorney General’s amendments. The proposals included provisions that misconduct by serving military personnel be tried, in the first instance, by military courts martial, with a right of appeal through civilian courts. Civilians who acquire specified firearms illegally would also be tried by military courts martial in the first instance.

The opposition saw this for what it was: a legislative override of a judicial decision. The Leader of Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi appealed to NRM members to observe the law, citing Article 92 of the Constitution, which prohibits parliament from enacting legislation that alters the decision of a court in a particular case.

Robert Kyagulanyi, President of National Unity Platform party, warned civilians not to allow their legislators to act against their will. He appealed to the international community to “rise to the occasion.” Nkunyingi Muwada, MP for Kyadondo East, was blunt: “Our Constitution does not permit parliament to legislate with the purpose of court’s decision… Court martial remains as a tribunal for army and military only. We shall resist it.”

International response

United Nations responded with unusual forcefulness. Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern that rather than encouraging efforts to implement the Supreme Court’s “crystal-clear decision,” Uganda’s legislators had voted to reinstate and broaden military court jurisdiction over civilians – a move that would contravene international human rights law obligations.

“The trial of civilians by military courts is in principle incompatible with international human rights law as it raises serious problems in relation to equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice. Such trials are only permissible in exceptional cases and subject to strict requirements.”

In May 2025, UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani urged President Museveni to reject the “regressive bill.” Parliament’s endorsement of the proposals, she noted, came in the lead-up to elections and alongside a troubling rise in arrests, abductions, harassment, intimidation, torture, and other ill-treatment of political opposition members . The international community’s appeals fell on deaf ears. The bill became law.

• A Tell Media report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula. The writer is a retired Ugandan scholar and elder who has witnessed and analysed Uganda’s political evolution from colonialism through independence to the present day.