Mengo should lobby Parliament to amend land law

By Keefa Kaweesa

As you read this article, the author is bedridden with a heart disease ailment but the mind is unweaving. Hence, a lead story appeared in New Vision of Thursday, July 2, titled: “President stops land eviction in Gomba”.

A very interesting but sad story indeed, however, so intriguing that you fail to know who can best comes to the rescue of peasants minus the hand of the President.

Parliament enacted the Land Act and the Amendments therein. Section 32A of the Amendment Act provides that “a lawful or bonafide occupant shall not be evicted from registered land except upon an order of eviction issued by a court and only for nonpayment of the annual nominal ground rent” but the land owner, Moses Kazibwe of Budunga village, Mpenja sub county had attempted to evicted 11 families from their plots (bibanja) of land.

Gomba County is endowed with some of the very basic factors. President Museveni resides there at his farm. However, in every district, there is a District Police Commander (DPC) and a Resident District Commissioner (RDC). It also a known fact that among lay men, who know very little about the law, the DPC cannot be counted among them.

Then the RDC, a muganda veteran and senior citizen by all means qualified according to minimum standards and represent the President in this area. I conclude that he is conversant with the law. However, the President had to dispatch another of his special assistants to handle this issue. Most intriguing, the two public officers instead of appreciating the President’s intervention, went on to blame the tenants for having petitioned the President. Where is the Kayihura’s standards agency?

The President should appoint a committee to monitor the performance of the RDCs.In normal circumstances, the two public officers should consider themselves lucky to have jobs now. What about other parts of the country, where the President does not have a farm where peasants can run to? Who protects them?

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 was awash with the President returning 80 Land titles to the Katikkiro.The President queried mainly the sh100,000  demanded  by Buganda Land Board from the tenants. The Katikkiro provided a smart answer that the act done by the tenants was voluntary.

Literally, a voluntary act can be defined in different terms.  A dictionary defines it as “arising in the mind without external constraint”. One would then safely state that the action of donating “ettoffali” is a voluntary act. However, at law it is perceived differently. A voluntary act is defined as “a bodily movement caused by the “effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or habitual”. There are two very general truths about human actions as such.

One of those truths is encapsulated within laws so called voluntary act principle. The voluntary act principle states that there can be no actus reus (and thus, no criminal liability) unless the defendant performed a voluntary act. Actus reus is the requirement that, before one is liable to punishment, one should not do one of the many thousands of actions prohibited by the criminal law.

The voluntary act principle thus requires willed bodily movement by a defendant before criminal liability may attach. The voluntary and wrongful act or omission that constitutes the physical components of a crime. Because a person cannot be punished for bad thoughts alone, there can be no criminal liability without actus reus.

My submission is very simple. Since the Mengo establishment is still riding the tiger, then it  is should lobby the Parliament for an amendment to the land Law  Act to bring  in the voluntary aspect the Katikkiro is smartening about failure of which, if there is ever dismounting , there will be bitter consequences.

The writer is a lawyer