President Museveni has summoned the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Parliamentary caucus to discuss the planned amendment of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) Act following the Supreme Court ruling which nullified some of its sections as unconstitutional.
The Government Chief Whip Hamson Obua, on Wednesday, February 19, revealed that the February 21 “special meeting” at State House, Entebbe, will discuss proposals that the office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Defence wants to be inserted in the UPDF Act.
“This particular meeting is when the NRM Parliamentary caucus will now receive those detailed proposals from the chambers of the Attorney General, and we shall be in a position to interrogate them and see what will form part of UPDF Act Amendments,” Mr. Obua said.
He explained that the amendment is one of the means of accommodating changes occasioned by the January 31 Supreme Court decision that nullified the trial of civilians in military courts and ordered the transfer of their files to the ordinary courts with competent jurisdiction.
When asked about the specific details of the proposed changes in the UPDF Act, Mr. Obua said, “We may not talk about the details now because it is only the Attorney General Chambers and the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs that have the draft.”
He added, “So until Friday, we can’t unpack proposals made by the Attorney General in consultation with the Ministry of Defence.”
The same meeting will deliberate on the remedial processes to be undertaken to plug the funding gaps in government programmes and projects affected by the suspension of US foreign aid and grant funding.
“That will also form part of the budget priorities’ discussion because we are looking at where to cut in order to accommodate this,” he said.
The meeting comes amid growing calls for the release of ailing veteran opposition politician Dr. Kizza Besigye, his aide Obeid Lutale, their lawyer Eron Kiiza, and National Unity Platform (NUP) supporters, among other political prisoners whose prosecutions in the General Court Martial and other military courts were stopped by the Supreme Court, which ordered the immediate transfer of the civilian files to the ordinary courts with competent jurisdiction.
