It’s getting dark outside. The coffee tastes great, the room is quiet. I am thinking deeply…writing slowly. At the start of September 2024, I had a late-night chat with a judicial officer high up in Uganda’s Judiciary.
It was a cordial ‘convo’…at a time when government was throwing everything – even the kitchen sink, at Isaac Ssemakadde to prevent him from becoming president of the Uganda Law Society (ULS).
The ruling party was petrified at the prospect of a tough-as-nails lawyer taking the helm of ULS. For the record, ULS is not some small, voluntary association of lawyers. And, it’s not some loose NGO. No, thank you! ULS is a statutory body, established by an Act of Parliament. It is Uganda’s Bar association; the guardian of the rule of law, the conscience of the legal profession, and the voice of justice in the nation.
Very sensitive body! It is, therefore, of strategic importance to a despotic government to have a stooge who will dance to the tunes of the deep state, as ULS president – not a brawling litigator who will challenge their every illegal act. Ssemakadde, flying high in rating, was waving a banner of reform; he visited various courts with a broom, promising to clean up the Judiciary.
Most every lawyer, frustrated with the many issues in the Judiciary that make private legal practice a nightmare, was excited – but the agents of the deep state within the Judiciary were horrified.
I asked my person what they were going to do about ‘Hurricane Isaac’. They laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, we already have the medicine for Ssemakadde.’ There comes a time in the life of a nation when the silence, inaction, or mal-action of its judges becomes more dangerous than the violence of its tyrants. Uganda has entered that time.
The Judiciary, once the last refuge of the oppressed, the final bastion of hope for the downtrodden, is rotting and wasting away before our very eyes. When those entrusted to interpret the law begin to interpret it for their own comfort; when conscience bows before convenience, then the nation stands upon the brink of ruin.
For the law is not merely words on paper; it is the conscience of a people given voice and authority through the courts. A good judge, in an age of grand corruption and plunder, must stand as the nation’s moral compass; not merely knowing the law, but loving justice.
Beyond just sitting upon the Bench, a judge must be the Bench, a living embodiment of truth, impartiality, and courage. When the Executive has gone astray, when the Legislature has been bought, and when the people groan under the weight of tyranny, it is to the Judiciary that a wounded nation turns for hope.
Judges are not courtiers in the palace of power, nor are they pawns on the chessboard of politics. They are the sentinels of justice, the last line of defence against the tyranny of men.
A good judge must be courageous: unmoved by fear of reprisal or the frown of the powerful. Independent: beholden to no man, ministry, or political wind.
Incorruptible: clean in pocket, clean in thought, clean in conscience. Compassionate, understanding that law without mercy is cruelty dressed in robes. Humble, aware that judgment belongs to God, and he merely lends his voice. Diligent, reading deeply, thinking widely, and ruling swiftly without prejudice.
Patriotic, not in the shallow sense of flag-waving, but in the higher duty of defending the Republic through fairness and truth. The robe of a judge is not a garment of privilege; it is a shroud of sacrifice. It is worn not for prestige but for service.
The gavel is not a sceptre of power; it is a symbol of responsibility. And to wield it unjustly is to betray not just the litigants before the court, but the very soul of the nation.
Uganda cannot rise where her judges stoop low. The Bench must once again become a citadel of sanity – calm, steady, and courageous, a moderating voice in the madness of corruption.
Judges must be the evidence that not all is lost, that there is still conscience in public life, that the flame of justice yet burns, however faintly, in the winds of greed. I invite the judges to rediscover conscience; to be judges, not functionaries. For if the judges fall, there is no one left to judge the fall.