Judges must scrutinise referendum issue

Jun 20, 2004

SIR — To hold a referendum on whether to go multiparty or to stay in the Movement is illegal.

SIR — To hold a referendum on whether to go multiparty or to stay in the Movement is illegal. This is because the courts of law practically declared the Movement to be a political party contrary to what the constitution envisaged. To remain in the Movement system therefore is to remain under a one-party state which is contrary to the constitution. So the people of Uganda cannot legally have a referendum asking them to decide whether they should continue under a one party state or go multiparty because the constitution bans it. The only legal option is to go multiparty without an illegal referendum.
The truth is that we can never again have the movement system as envisaged by the constitution because the Movement was a transitionary arrangement which required the goodwill and acceptance of all the political forces in the country.
but now the level of polarisation precludes any dream (or nightmare) of a working Movement system. To hold a referendum on the two-term limits is illegal unless, first, a panel of judges of the supreme court is selected to examine and inform the populace if all the conditions that led to the clause being inserted into the constitution are not still with us in whatever measure.
This is because the judges are the authoritative agents who know the rules that govern evidence unlike us peasants. In fact that panel should even tell us whether we should even begin to discuss removing the term limit given the facts which led to its inclusion in the constitution. Growing levels of intimidation, torture of opposition members, vote rigging, corruption, nepotism, fake referenda are a few of the things I believe this panel would have to scrutinise before we poor peasants are handed a rope (referendum) to hang ourselves.

Paget Kintu
Jinja

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