Funeral service for Justice Tsekooko

Oct 17, 2019

Tsekooko died on Monday at the age of 77, at Norvik hospital after a long battle with prostate cancer.

OBITUARY      JUSTICE

KAMPALA - A funeral service for former Supreme Court Justice Wilson Tsekooko is going to be held at St. Luke Anglican Church in Ntinda.

Tsekooko died on Monday at the age of 77, at Norvik hospital after a long battle with prostate cancer.

Since his death, there has been an outpouring of tributes from the legal profession with many describing him as one of the finest legal brains to have ever graced the bench.

He was held in high regard in the legal fraternity for his courage, brilliance, humility and uncompromising nature.

According to lawyers, his judgments were always unquestionable and hard to contest.

Tsekooko served as a Supreme Court justice from 1994 to 2015 and during this time, he had the opportunity to be among the justices who handled two presidential poll petitions, 2001 and 2006. In both instances, he annulled President Yoweri Museveni's election and ordered for fresh elections.

However, this was not to be the first time he is involved in a matter against President Yoweri Museveni. In 1980, president Museveni through a lawyer, Jonathan Kateera sued former President Milton Obote for defamation.

It's alleged that Obote had claimed that Museveni was not Ugandan and could not qualify for presidential elections.

To file his response Obote hired Tsekooko to defend him but the case never took off because Museveni, took to the bush and started a guerrilla war in protest of Obote's victory.

Of course, his UPC leanings are one thing that Museveni wasn't about to forget. By 2017, Tsekooko had already retired but was present during that year's judges' conference in which President Museveni cheekily said that the judiciary was still full of UPC cadres. This prompted laughter from everybody, including Tsekooko.

Between 1990 and 1994, he served as a High Court Judge. He also served in different capacities including chairperson of the Judicial Training Committee and Chairperson East African Judicial Education Committee (1997-2012).

Tsekooko worked in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, starting as a state attorney and rising through the ranks to become a principal state attorney.

He was also a Member of Parliament under the UPC ticket and chaired the privileges committee between 1981 and 1985.

At the time of his death, he was working on a civil procedure rules project for the judiciary, the ‘Civil Procedure Bench Book'.

Tsekooko will be buried on Saturday at his ancestral home in Bunakhaima village, Butiru Sub-county, Manafwa district.

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