Prisons authorities want 1,000 convicts pardoned

By Petride Mudoola  

The Prisons authorities have submitted names of over 1,200 convicts to the committee on Prerogative of Mercy for pardon.

The committee headed by the President usually pardons a number of prisoners who are unconditionally released around the Christmas period.

Dr. Johnson Byabashaija, the Commissioner General of Prisons, however says he has not yet received a response on the 1,121 names submitted.

“Our mandate is to compile a list of prisoners from various detention centers who qualify for Presidential pardon and then submit the names to the Attorney General’s office for approval,” Byabashaija told the New Vision last week.

“I cannot reveal the names, but the list includes the elderly above 54 years, pregnant women, the breastfeeding mothers, the terminally ill prisoners, petty offenders, capital offenders remaining with only six months of their sentence and convicts on death row,” explained Byabashaija when asked about the identity of those on the list.

Although the president has no powers to intervene in criminal prosecution, Article 121 of the 1995 Constitution allows him, through the advisory committee of prerogative of mercy, to exercise his rights to release prisoners.
 
The prerogative of mercy is an executive process that comes after the Judiciary has concluded its duties. The committee is headed by the President and chaired by the Attorney General and six reputable members of the public, whose identities remain secretive.

The last presidential pardon was in 2012 and among the prominent prisoners released was city businessman Sharma Kooky, who was sentenced to death and had spent 12 years in prison killing his wife, Renu Joshi.

In 2009, the president pardoned former Internal Affairs Minister Chris Rwakasisi, and the former Governor of the Central Province during Amin regime, Abdullah Nassur, who was on death row in Luzira's Upper Prison.

A prominent inmate, Johnson Kamya Wavamuno, who has spent 15 years of his life sentence in jail for aggravated robbery and murder, says his sojourn in prison has taught him a lot and has given him an emotional experience that made him renounce his old habits and embrace salvation.
 
 "We plead to God and through his Grace the Archbishop to ask the President and the nation to accept our apologies and grant us pardon. Without divine intervention no single soul would survive these inhuman, unbearable and inordinate sentences we were handed," he pleaded.