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Since April 4, the several public pronouncements of Balaam Barugahara, the state minister for Youth and Children Affairs as well as the judiciary’s confirmatory statement via X on April 11, have compelled the Uganda Law Society (ULS) to express dismay at the “first-ever mobile High court session” at Ggaba community church grounds.
This orchestrated spectacle is not novel; it is a civilian echo of the very constitutional violations the ULS successfully challenged; and the Constitutional Court condemned, in Petition No. 2 of 2002 (consolidated with Petition No. 8 of 2002).
In that case, two UPDF soldiers were arrested, tried by Field Court Martial, convicted, sentenced to death, and executed on the same day for the murder of three civilians in Kotido district. The proceedings were driven by public outrage and operational “necessity.”
The ULS petitioned that the process violated Article 28 (right to a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal, adequate time and facilities for preparation of defence) and Article 128 (judicial independence).
The parallels here are stark and damning. Then, as now, a heinous crime inflamed public sentiment; then, as now, “speedy justice” was demanded and delivered outside ordinary safeguards; then, as now, the tribunal’s independence was compromised by the very structure and context created to satisfy that demand.
The only material difference is that the 2002 violation occurred in a military forum; today it is being replicated in a civilian High court session deliberately relocated to the crime scene at executive behest.
The Constitutional court’s reasoning binds with equal force: a mobile court summoned to the churchyard where the victims were mourned, under live cameras and ministerial oversight, cannot satisfy Article 28 or Article 128 any more than the Kotido Field Court Martial could.
We condemn this in the strongest terms. The Judiciary’s statement of 11 April 2026 is not reform. It is institutional cover for the most cynical executive interference in 24 years. The Judiciary has abandoned the bench for political theatre and mob-adjacent justice. This will not stand.
THE JUDICIARY AS LAWBREAKER
Justice Alice Komuhangi Khaukha is presiding over the mobile High court at the Ggaba Community Church grounds to try Christopher Okello Onyum on four counts of murder.
It calls the sitting “historic”, particularises the trial modalities, and cites Legal Notice No. 1 of 2026; the Constitution (Operation of Mobile Courts) (Practice) Directions, 2026, as authority.
The Uganda Law Society finds this session unconstitutional, unsafe, and a calculated fraud on the public for the following reasons: Therefore, the mobile High court at Ggaba is not an innovation.
It is a violation, and a precedent in the making. A capital trial demands the highest procedural safeguards. There is no “public interest” exception to Articles 28 and 44(c). This is not merely a single trial. It is the first-ever use of the mobile court system.
It will set the template for future high- profile prosecutions. If constitutional safeguards are diluted under public outrage and executive direction, that dilution will not remain exceptional. It will become the rule.
That is why the National Bar Association must fight now. Our mandate under Section 3 of the Uganda Law Society Act is to protect and assist the public in all matters touching the law, and to assist the Government and the courts in all matters affecting legislation and the administration of justice.
To stay silent while the executive selects the court venue and modalities, and the Judiciary obeys, is to ratify the death of Article 128 by acquiescence. Twenty-four years ago, the Constitutional court nullified the infamous Kotido field court martial trial in Uganda Law Society v Attorney General, Constitutional Petition No. 2 of 2002, because command cannot replace process.
The principle has not aged. The danger has returned. Accordingly, the Uganda Law Society will move the competent court for declarations that the Ggaba mobile High court is unconstitutional, and for orders prohibiting its sitting. We seek to restore judicial independence and enforce Articles 28, 44, and 128 before this precedent hardens into practice.
The author is president, Uganda Law Society.
