Aboneka Writes

 By Michael Aboneka Jr The Ugandan legal framework provides for an MP to double as a Minister at the appointment of the  P resident.  There has ensued debates on the constitutionality of such provisions considering the principles of separation of powers and public interest. The Constitutional Court on March 18 th  2021 delivered a landmark judgement in the  Constitutional Petition No. 16 of 2016  in which the Court emphasized that a Judicial officer who has not resigned their judicial position/office cannot at the same time work in a public office following the appointment by the Executive as this breaches the principle of separation of powers among others. It is now clear that a Judicial officer cannot serve with one leg in the Executive and the other in the Judiciary as this offends Judicial Independence. It is now time to look into steering clear of the fusion between the Executive and the legislature as a number of MPs are appointed as Ministers by the ...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr We have been fighting COVID-19 since March 2020 and the fight is still on, the Ugandans have tried their best albeit many consequences such as loss of income over the period. In what you would term as the first wave era of COVID-19, there were many errors from the crafting of measures to implementation of the same. We witnessed loads of violations and abuses of rights with total disregard to due processes. A number of Ugandans were clobbered, maimed, assaulted by some enforcing agents in the name of enforcing COVID-19 measures. The enforcement agencies must operate within the set principles and at all times respect the rights of Individuals as they implement the new Measures in trying to curb the further spread the new wave of the Virus. We should have learned from the past experiences and by now, the state and its agencies should know how  best  to implement these measures without causing unnecessary mayhem to the people. We do not expect unnecess...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr Governments around the world including Uganda learnt about COVID-19 in November 2019 and it is expected that the planning for responses to the same should have started then. There could have been some planning perhaps but the way we have responded to this pandemic exposes our lack or poor planning.    There was a need to have scenarios  drawn  for immediate-, medium- and long-term  interventions for  dealing with COVID-19. We are not sure how long COVID-19 shall stay especially since it keeps mutating everyday. I am aware that we have several task forces, scientific and legal committees etc dealing with th e  pandemic response but the social economic aspects have largely been ignored. We have always emphasized the need for data in all spheres. For example, we are still struggling to define and identify the vulnerable persons who need urgent support. It is now 5 days since another lockdown was declar...

As we are trying to get wind of the electoral period, the confirmation from the Electoral Commission that it excluded results from over 1,200 polling stations dampens the mood for the struggle for participatory electoral democracy. This is not the first time results are being excluded from the final tallying of results, this too happened in 2016 when results from some Polling stations including Kampala were ignored. This kind of precedent is not acceptable for our democracy. The voters spent the entire day casting their vote and then you tell them that their votes cannot be included because they cannot make any significant change.  In an electoral Democracy, every vote counts and it doesn't matter what their effect is. It is unfortunate that this kind of precedent continues to be perpetrated by the Electoral Commission and hopefully it can be legally put to rest. You cannot spend time and resources calling upon Ugandans to vote and then exclude their votes in the final tally all i...

By Michael Aboneka As part of easing the lock down, the President announced several updates which included opening of arcades that meet the standards set, salons and allowing boda-bodas carry passengers. The boda-bodas and arcades must keep records of every person as part of the new requirements. They must write down their name, National ID number, Residence and telephone number in a bid to help in contact tracing just in case one of them happens to contract COVID-19. Be that as it may, there are issues concerning privacy of a person and that of their Data. The President recently assented to the Data Protection and Privacy Bill into law operationalizing Article 27 of the Constitution. The law aims at protecting the the privacy of the individual and of personal data by regulating the collection and processing of personal information; provides for the rights of the persons whose data is collected and the obligations of data collectors, data processers and data controllers; regulates ...

By Michael Aboneka The rush to create new cities has been marred with the appetite to create constituencies for many and not necessarily for the reasons of economic development among others. I have not seen any strategic development plan of any of the new Cities but rather been bamboozled with Candidate Posters of all manner and colour intending to take up political seats in the new cities. Among these is the "City Woman MP." I am wondering what law created the vacancy of "City Woman MP." Article 78 of the Constitution establishes the composition of the Parliament and specifically 78 (1) (b) establishes One Woman Representative for each District. Therefore, this means that the Constitution refers to a District and not a City for a representative of the Women in a district. Secondly, a City is curved out of a District that already has a Representative of the woman (wrongfully and commonly referred to as "Woman MP") and there is no need of a Second rep...

By Michael Aboneka Jr: The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a general approach  regardless of the various categories of our population. The PWDS make up 26.5% of the general population (2014) and the blind 12.4% of the 26.5% PWDs who need specific interventions during this COVID-19 era.  I have seen blind people suffering the wrath of the curfew enforcement with the enforcement agencies not considering their unique situations.  Further, the educational messages making rounds on the media do not take care of the deaf as they have no sign-language interpreter and this therefore means that about  are missing out on the message from the Ministry of Health. Secondly, I have seen that masks are now being distributed and most of them are one size fits all with elastics to which one will attach to their ears. How about those without ears, how will they use the general masks. A simple string mask will be befitting of this category, but has the Ministry thought about his? Further, ...