Judges cannot deny prisoners remission, Supreme Court rules
The Supreme Court noted that remission is a post-sentencing function intended to promote discipline, rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, and that judicial orders barring remission amount to judicial overreach.
The Supreme Court building. (New Vision/Miriam Namutebi)
_________________
The Supreme Court has ruled that courts have no authority to order that prisoners serve their sentences without the possibility of remission, holding that the power to grant or withhold remission rests with the Executive through prison authorities and not the Judiciary.
The judgment stems from an appeal by Olowo Wandera alias Musse, who had initially been sentenced to death by the High Court for the 2007 murder of his wife, Scovia Owor, in Tororo District. The Court of Appeal later substituted the death sentence with a 40-year jail term and directed that it be served without remission.
Wandera challenged the directive before the Supreme Court, arguing that denying him remission was unlawful and violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers.
In a landmark judgment dated July 31, the Supreme Court justices, led by Stephen Musota, set aside the Court of Appeal's order denying remission and restored Wandera's statutory right to remission.
“We do hereby set aside the order of the Court of Appeal that the 40-year sentence imposed on the appellant be served without remission. The appellant’s right to remission as by law provided is hereby reinstated,” Justice Musota ruled.
The justices ruled that decisions on remission fall within the mandate of the Executive and prison authorities and cannot be imposed or withheld by the Judiciary as part of sentencing.
They observed that while courts have the authority to impose sentences, the administration of remission is governed by the Prisons Act and falls under the Uganda Prisons Service and the President's constitutional prerogative of mercy.
“A sentencing judge or judicial officer should apply the principles of sentencing to a convict before him or her without delving into the question of remission of sentence, which is the exclusive preserve of the Executive branch of Government,” the court ruled.
Citing Sections 83 to 85 of the Prisons Act, the justices said prisoners sentenced to more than one month may earn up to one-third remission of their sentence through good conduct.
The Supreme Court declined to alter Wandera's 40-year prison term, stating that a second appeal on sentence is limited to questions of law and not the severity of the sentence.
Court documents indicate that Wandera was convicted of the offence of murder contrary to Sections 188 and 189 of the Penal Code Act, Cap. 128, by the High Court in Tororo.
The prosecution states that on January 22, 2007, at Yokango village, Nyakesi parish, Rubungi subcounty in Tororo district, Wandera murdered his wife, Owor.
The court heard that the deceased had moved out of the appellant's home and, in early January 2007, started cohabiting with one Jimmy Otendo. On the fateful night, the appellant, armed with a panga, accosted the deceased at her new home and, following her refusal to return to his home, cut her on the head with the panga.
The assailant then left the deceased in a nearby cassava garden before throwing the panga used in the murder into a pit latrine.