Kanyeihamba has chosen not to know the law!
Mar 26, 2004
SIR— Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba’s statement that peasants cannot shape our
SIR— Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba’s statement that peasants cannot shape our nation’s destiny was a desperate attempt to overturn Article I of the Constitution, the fundamental law by which every citizen is governed in Uganda.
The article provides that power belongs to the people. It does not exclude peasants. This power includes the power to make important decisions.
Indeed, peasants have made very important decisions in this country.
They directly participated in the presidential, parliamentary and the local council elections. Few will doubt that peasants have indirectly placed the judge, Kanyeihamba, in his noble office by electing the President who nominated him and the MPs who vetted him and accepted the appointment. The peasants have no doubt shaped the destiny of this nation.
During the Roman times, Cicero the orator, declared that no state, except one in which the people have supreme power, can be a power house of freedom. Aristotle (384-322BC) admitted that people as a whole possess a certain political wisdom in judging their rulers and they should not be disregarded even in the
slightest.
Democracy entails the mutual participation of both the peasants and the educated without one undermining the other. Therefore, while such cruelty towards the peasant can be excused in somebody like Eriya Kategaya (for many reasons), it is unacceptable in a Supreme Court judge like Kanyeihamba.
Keddy J. Ringakech
Makerere University
The article provides that power belongs to the people. It does not exclude peasants. This power includes the power to make important decisions.
Indeed, peasants have made very important decisions in this country.
They directly participated in the presidential, parliamentary and the local council elections. Few will doubt that peasants have indirectly placed the judge, Kanyeihamba, in his noble office by electing the President who nominated him and the MPs who vetted him and accepted the appointment. The peasants have no doubt shaped the destiny of this nation.
During the Roman times, Cicero the orator, declared that no state, except one in which the people have supreme power, can be a power house of freedom. Aristotle (384-322BC) admitted that people as a whole possess a certain political wisdom in judging their rulers and they should not be disregarded even in the
slightest.
Democracy entails the mutual participation of both the peasants and the educated without one undermining the other. Therefore, while such cruelty towards the peasant can be excused in somebody like Eriya Kategaya (for many reasons), it is unacceptable in a Supreme Court judge like Kanyeihamba.
Keddy J. Ringakech
Makerere University