By KT Reporter
Exiled Uganda Law Society President continues to shrug off criticism that he is extreme in his pursuit for a change in the delivery and administration of justice in the country.
Ssemakadde has employed what appear like extremist methods including confrontation, vulgar language and abuse of judges leading to a fall out between the Bar and the bench. Before he fled the country, he was facing a two-year sentence for contempt of court.
Chief Justice, Owiny- Dollo had also asked him to apologize to Judge Musa Ssekaana and the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Jane Francis Abodo whom head allegedly insulted.
The unapologetic Ssemakadde denies that he is not extreme in his methods but rather radical though his radical solution feel extreme.
In Ssemakadde explained that to be radical is to go to the root of the problem and to begin to solve it from there.
“To be radical is not extremism but it is necessary. It is common to see a radical ad mistake them to be an extremist because their forms of representation see the same,” he stated.
He argues that merely seeking to be different from those you disagree with is not radical. “It is just extreme. And many extremists are taken for radicals and vice versa. Personally I’m a radical but some of you in the government are extremists. Our intention is to compel power in this country to enable the delivery of justice as a constitution right”
According to Ssemakadde, more imprisonments in Uganda result from poverty, political opposition or offending the powerful. “We have said that the practices of law must be free to deliver justice to Ugandans who are suffering. Land grabbing, bad employment conditions sexual harassment, racial discrimination, stolen elections corporate theft and unjust taxation,” he explained.
He told the gathering at Uganda Law Society offices through a virtual address from his one room in exile that under difficult conditions, they have initiated a campaign to reset the practice of law back on track.
“To see that every imprisoned Ugandan who entitled to bail gets it. The challenges we have faced are well known. This is a campaign we will not relent from because if we are successful, it will go a long way towards de congesting the jails, reuniting families, reorienting judges and magistrates. And exposing the interests hat have previously and now continues to profit from this misery,” he stated.
He further stated that the judiciary’s reliance contempt power to shield itself from criticism is an indictment and not a defense.
“The offense of scandalizing the court which is responsible for me speaking to you digitally is a relic of colonial oppression. Lon discarded in democratic societies but it has been revived in our courts now to deal with radicals like me and force us into exile” he said.
Ssemakadde rode on his radical methods to win the Presidency of Uganda Law Society and branded it the Radical New Bar. His method of work including banging the tables have won him admiration among the young generation of lawyers and human rights defenders.
Some have detested his methods accusing him of being extreme. He has insisted that the current judicial system represents a general crisis in the country. “It simply doesn’t deliver. That the system is engineered to serve economic and political interests that are usually not interrogated,” he argues.
He is of the view that the access to justice preserves and perpetuates existing inequalities of access to education, healthcare, and access to employment opportunity.
“We the Uganda law Society present no apologies. We will not be silenced, and we will remain an independent Bar. Now and forever. unapologetically radical, unfalteringly bold and irrevocably committed to the fundamental principles of justice, accountability and freedom of expression,” he promised.
The Uganda Law Society boycotted the 8th Benedicto Kiwanuka Memorial lecture organized by the judiciary. Equally the judiciary did not have a slot on it program for the Law Society President or his vice president to speak.
”The attack on the Chief Justice in 1972, with all the legal violations surrounding it, marked a death of relationships between the state and justice. Despite all those hopes, and efforts of the subsequent decades, this clearly has never been repaired. These issues are not news they keep on developing. They are the very points of concerns within our legal fraternity that led to the election of the Radical New Bar to the leadership of Uganda law Society,” Ssemakadde wrote urging his members to boycott the memorial. Ssemakadde’s mandate was extended for six more months as the society marked at the sixteenth Rule of Law Week.
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