Justice Stephen Mubiru, may it please you, my Lord! Thy humble Officer of Court doth seek thine indulgence on a small matter herein disclosed.
Recently, I, in typical idle mode, was closing the day’s proceedings with a lazy perusal of social media when I fell upon two little stories.
In story one, a judicial officer in criminal court asks the accused why he keeps turning up in his court, from year to year.
The accused wryly replies, ‘Your honour, it isn’t my fault that you’re not getting promoted!’ In football, that would be a solid 1-0 scoreline!
Story two was a cartoon in which an angry, frustrated parent is accusing one of his children, called Salary, of remaining a dwarf when all his siblings – Fuel, Taxes, Food Prices, et al, are growing tall and big, becoming giants.
He asks, ‘Why can’t you be like your brothers?’ The two stories sounded oddly familiar. Very close to home. They reminded me of someone, who was it? I scratched my grey head for a while, and then it hit me: ‘Hey, it’s Stevo!’ Then I corrected myself: ‘Er… Justice Mubiru.’
My Lord, I haven’t quite seen you since that very sad afternoon in Rubaga Cathedral a few years ago, about which I daresay no more.
But this is one of the times I should have liked to meet you in private, during after-court hours, when we’ve thrown off all those robes and whatever other courtroom regalia.
Then we sit down in a cafe, just the two of us; I call you Stevo, you call me Tom, and we order good ol’ fashioned coffee and muffins. We ditch English and switch to Luganda. We strike out the ‘My Lord’ stuff, I address you as ‘Mwana Wattu’. Building castles in the air!
Anyway, I read many of your judicial decisions – and shake my head. Too much English. Too much research – this is not Harvard University.
Too many pages. Too much law. Too many legal principles. Too much justice. My Lord, too much of anything is bad! Now look at you: even Johnny-come-latelys who found you at High Court level have left you there. Have you no ambition? People are going places! People are building mansions!
Were you once an altar boy? Anti, I see you carry yourself with the suspicious innocence of a man who once rang the bell at Mass. You write judgments as though you’re still holding a candle before the altar.
You approach the Constitution as though it were Scripture. You treat precedent as though it were Church doctrine, and injustice as absolute sacrilege. Very touching, my Lord, but it takes you nowhere. You might have missed your true vocation.
Why didn’t you ‘take the Holy Orders’ instead – become a priest? Or lecture at Harvard? The Judiciary is not a church; it is a Kampala street corner with robes. Be sharp! You must learn the sacred art of survival.
Know when to genuflect before power. Know when to sprinkle holy water on a bad argument and declare it persuasive. Know when to turn legal darkness into constitutional light. Mwana Wattu, you seem to confuse being wise with being clever. Kakati, let me mentor you: A wise judge asks, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ A clever judge asks, ‘What is the useful thing to do?’ A wise judge worries about principle.
A clever judge worries about promotion. A wise judge masters jurisprudence. A clever judge masters promotion architecture and the byzantine ecology of advancement.
A man is abducted by security agencies, tortured, then dumped in your court? The fool is guilty! Remand him immediately.
Deny him bail! Engineer the trial! Your godfather sues a media house for defamation, teach them a lesson – slap some really good millions in damages upon the idiots so that they close shop. An election petition against a ruling party member is before you -dismiss it with costs!
Cut down on everything. The English, cut! The research, cut! The pages, cut, cut! The ethics and integrity, cut, cut, cut! Don’t be Manchester United – playing the best football and coming third in the 2025/26 English Premier League season.
Be Arsenal: playing rough and ugly but getting the 2025/26 Premier League season trophy. Beera mu klass, Mwana Wattu!