Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Norbert Mao will present before Parliament a host of law reforms that include the long awaited Constitutional review agenda by the end of 2022, he has revealed.
Mao’s appointment as Minister caused a stir in the opposition politics because Democratic Party (DP) which he leads signed cooperation agreement with President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM).
He has since maintained that the role of Minister is only for causing change while working with the regime in power but not collapsing the opposition DP as many political commentators and actors have alluded.
Mao, who via the cooperation agreement will hold his ministerial position without any reshuffle until after 2026 general elections, says that soon he will brief the President on a raft of proposals comprised in the Ministerial Policy Statement for Financial Year 2022/23.
“In two weeks I will sit with the President to brief him on the ministerial policy statement. After the President has made his comments, I will go to Parliament and announce a rack of legislative measures.” Mao said.
Addressing the members of the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) Council this week, Mao said that the proposed reforms will include the national dialogue, transactional justice and constitutional reforms.
According to the Minister, other outstanding issues that include the persistent call for electoral reforms are on his table for consideration.
The Constitution of the Republic of Uganda that was promulgated in 1995 has been amended a number of times but there has been concerns that the key changes are only made to benefit President Museveni as an individual. In 2005, Parliament amended the Constitution to lift presidential term limits at a time when Museveni would not have been legible to stand for elections in 2006 while the most recent amendment was the removal of the Presidential age limit in 2017 hence giving the revolutionary leader a chance to run in 2021 at the age of 77.
In the build up to the 2021 general elections, the government was under pressure to table before Parliament constitutional reforms but this could not materialize. At some point in 2020, the then Deputy Attorney General, Mweigwa Rukutana promised to release the Constitutional Review Commission team but this did not materialize.
Parliament has been awash with motions seeking leave to introduce a number of Constitutional Amendment Bills by private members who are not ready to wait any longer for the government to act. However, the current leadership of Parliament has guided that all those proposed amendments be reserved for the Constitutional Review Commission instead of amending the Constitution in piece meal.
The most recent attempt to table private member’s Bill on amending the Constitution includes the need to amend the schedule to include four new tribes that include the Maragoli in Kiryandongo District and the Bagabo in Kasese District. There is also a pending Bill on the amendment of the Constitution to the change the leadership structure of Bank of Uganda.
In 2020, Ndorwa East legislator, Wilfred Niwagaba successfully convinced Parliament to introduce a private member’s Bill seeking to amend up to 30 Articles of the Constitution. By the time, the term ended in May last year, the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs had reported on the matter and the House was set to go for the second reading where each clause would be considered.
But, with the guidance of late Speaker Jacob Oulanyah at the beginning of the 11th Parliament tenure, all work stalled from the last Parliament would be tabled afresh to be considered.
“We are still consulting as the opposition on how to introduce the Bill again. Some of the members agree with all my proposals while others have reservations on some of them. So, when the consultations are concluded, we will seek space of the order paper to retable the Bill” Niwagaba said.
Among the key proposals in Niwagaba’s Bill are; changing the structure of the Executive by replacing the Vice President with a deputy President who like in Kenya would be elected together with the President; repealing the Office of the Prime Minister; reducing the size of Cabinet to 21 Cabinet Ministers and 21 State Ministers.
Meanwhile, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in its report on the proposed amendments by Niwagaba, also proposed the extension of the term of office for all elected leaders from five to seven years.
Speaker Anita Among while guiding about the requests for leave to present private members’ Bills seeking to amend the Constitution, recently directed the Minister of Justice to consider the proposals by all the legislators before a comprehensive Bill is tabled by government.
Mao has remained tightlipped on what kind of proposals the government wants to bring on table concerning the amendment of the Constitution.
There have been talks among the opposition figures that there are plans by the Executive to amend the Constitution to change from presidential system where a President is elected through universal adult suffrage to a Parliamentary system where only lawmakers vote the President. But, the government has not owned this.
The Minister has also revealed that he intends to propose ways of ensuring the first democratic political transition in the country since independence. With nine Presidents so far, Uganda has never witnessed peaceful change of guard since all Presidents have come into power through violence. The only difference is that since 1996 Ugandans have been going to the polls that have since been won six times by Museveni.
He says the first phase will be national dialogue that will bring in place a general consensus on how all Ugandans can move together irrespective of the political parties and religious dispensation; the second phase will be implementing the outcome of the dialogue through the 2026 elections; while the third phase will be political transition in 2031.
Mao says that, Uganda is no longer set to witness violent transfer of power but the new government should be democratically elected in a process that is acceptable to all parties.
“I would not want another government to come and change government in Uganda. I should be the one to change it” he said.
He has warned political activists from seeking solutions to leadership and governance challenges abroad by staging demonstrations in major cities across the world.
