PAFO fracas: Parliament can’t investigate itself, surely!
Mar 11, 2004
SIR— Yesterday’s New Vision reported that Parliament had voted to set up its own committee to investigate the recent clash between the Parliamentary Advocates Forum (PAFO) and a group of alleged Movement supporters in Jinja.
SIR— Yesterday’s New Vision reported that Parliament had voted to set up its own committee to investigate the recent clash between the Parliamentary Advocates Forum (PAFO) and a group of alleged Movement supporters in Jinja.
It is amazing to learn how omnipotent and omniscient our MPs believe they are. In the Jinja fracas, there are three key suspects who should be investigated. First are youths who took part in the actual showdown.
Second is PAFO which is said to have fomented the trouble by inviting the general public and later turning down some people at the last minute using abusive language and provocation. Third are some Movement supporters accused by PAFO of masterminding the whole saga.
It is in public interest that the source of such a breach of the peace is established so that similar situations can be avoided in future, especially since we are heading for a more charged political season in the next two years. But be that as it may, an investigation done by one of the parties to the problem cannot be useful at all in this sense.
Natural justice requires that no one shall be a judge in his or her own case. This is a case in which PAFO is a party. PAFO is a section of Parliament. For a committee of the same Parliament to probe the Jinja incident amounts to being a judge in one’s own case.
This defeats the purpose of justice, the rule of law and democracy which we all claim to espouse. Even if the committee is composed of non-PAFO MPs, they too are highly interested parties and it would be a joke to expect impartiality from them.
In my view, the CID should undertake such an inquiry and bring the culprits to justice, but I am also aware that PAFO accuses the Police of complicity in the saga and would want it equally investigated.
If that is the case, then none of the interested parties, MPs, the Movement inclusive, should be the investigator in this case.
If we must have an inquiry other than by the Police in this particular case, another neutral body would be more credible than a group MPs.
But there is also the view held by many that an independent commission of inquiry would be yet another wastage of scarce public resources because the root of the problem is well known.
The reality is that in politics, forces must contend and as they do so, the use of force may result if the players fail to restrain themselves and resort to provoking each other to the hilt. Inquiry or no inquiry, this is bound to recur unless leaders learn to deal with people who have different political leanings, especially excited supporters, in ways that do not incite violent reaction.
Julius Victor Nkera
Kampala
It is amazing to learn how omnipotent and omniscient our MPs believe they are. In the Jinja fracas, there are three key suspects who should be investigated. First are youths who took part in the actual showdown.
Second is PAFO which is said to have fomented the trouble by inviting the general public and later turning down some people at the last minute using abusive language and provocation. Third are some Movement supporters accused by PAFO of masterminding the whole saga.
It is in public interest that the source of such a breach of the peace is established so that similar situations can be avoided in future, especially since we are heading for a more charged political season in the next two years. But be that as it may, an investigation done by one of the parties to the problem cannot be useful at all in this sense.
Natural justice requires that no one shall be a judge in his or her own case. This is a case in which PAFO is a party. PAFO is a section of Parliament. For a committee of the same Parliament to probe the Jinja incident amounts to being a judge in one’s own case.
This defeats the purpose of justice, the rule of law and democracy which we all claim to espouse. Even if the committee is composed of non-PAFO MPs, they too are highly interested parties and it would be a joke to expect impartiality from them.
In my view, the CID should undertake such an inquiry and bring the culprits to justice, but I am also aware that PAFO accuses the Police of complicity in the saga and would want it equally investigated.
If that is the case, then none of the interested parties, MPs, the Movement inclusive, should be the investigator in this case.
If we must have an inquiry other than by the Police in this particular case, another neutral body would be more credible than a group MPs.
But there is also the view held by many that an independent commission of inquiry would be yet another wastage of scarce public resources because the root of the problem is well known.
The reality is that in politics, forces must contend and as they do so, the use of force may result if the players fail to restrain themselves and resort to provoking each other to the hilt. Inquiry or no inquiry, this is bound to recur unless leaders learn to deal with people who have different political leanings, especially excited supporters, in ways that do not incite violent reaction.
Julius Victor Nkera
Kampala