The recent farewell court proceedings for former deputy chief justice (DCJ) Richard Buteera held on Friday, April 4, 2025 can best be described as a sham.
The attempt to lend legitimacy to the farce failed flat. The fact that the Radical New Bar leadership of the Uganda Law Society (ULS) was not invited to this proceeding is perhaps the only redeeming aspect of the entire debacle.
For nearly five years, Buteera occupied the DCJ position, which he obtained without a single required legal procedure being followed. No advertisement. No shortlisting. No Judicial Service Commission recommendation.
His appointment was then rubber-stamped by judge Musa Ssekaana in Citizen Alert v Attorney General (Miscellaneous Cause 339 of 2020). A blatant disregard for the Constitutional court’s landmark ruling in Gerald Karuhanga v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition 39 of 2013).
Everyday Buteera sat on that bench was an assault on our legal framework. Every judgment he rendered was tainted by constitutional impropriety.
A LEGACY OF CONTEMPT
Buteera’s career at the bench and the bar, including his long stint as Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) (1995- 2013), is a legacy marked by political servitude, contempt for the rule of law, and a blatant disregard for the principles of justice.
Buteera’s service record will forever be tainted by his persecution of President Museveni’s political opponents. The sanctioning of trumped-up charges of rape and treason against Dr Kizza Besigye on the eve of the 2006 general elections is the most infamous of DPP Buteera’s transgressions.
He reignited the culture of defiling the Constitution by rubber-stamping decisions of security and intelligence agencies to re-arrest, detain and torture suspects who had been granted bail, which contributed to the cause of death of Besigye’s younger brother Joseph Musasizi Kifeefe in November, 2007.
The unusual case of Teddy Seezi Cheeye, editor of the outspoken, anti-corruption Uganda Confidential, demonstrates the extent to which DPP Buteera sometimes went in his attempts to silence critics of Museveni’s NRM government.
In early 1996, Cheeye, who had been the target of at least four sedition prosecutions and more than a dozen defamation claims, was charged with kidnapping with intent to force a woman to engage in oral sex after he gave a ride to a female hitchhiker.
In acquitting Cheeye, Kampala Chief Magistrate Flavia Munaaba said the charge was “a frame-up engineered by powerful and corrupt people whom Cheeye had long been criticizing in his journalistic work.”
His successors Mike Chibita and Jane Frances Abodo, both High court judges and former state attorneys, unflinchingly perfected into an art form the Buteera doctrine of weaponizing the DPP’s office.
Maliciously prosecuting people based on poverty, status, or for their activism, they institutionalised a police-to-prison pipeline and caused unsustainable case backlogs.
Buteera implemented precisely zero of his own recommendations contained in the 2017 Report of the Case Backlog Reduction Committee that he authored after he was commissioned in October, 2016 by former Chief Justice Bart Katureebe to investigate the judiciary’s backlog crisis.
When he was ushered in, as the second-in-command on September 8, 2020, case backlogs metastasized under his watch. Buteera’s leadership of the Court of Appeal/Constitutional court is indicted for a very substantial increase in its backlog, according to official judiciary statistics.
The backlog under his leadership more than doubled from 2,709 cases in January, 2017 to 6,701 cases by June, 2024 – a dramatic surge of 147.36%.
The total number of backlog cases across the entire judiciary also increased, rising from 37,827 to 42,588 (a 12.59% increase) over the same timeframe.
Speaking to the press on August 26, 2020 alongside his new boss chief justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, Buteera said: ‘I have been in the court system for so long, there are programmes that will improve the judiciary … and the most important one is clearance of the backlog. Seeing that cases do not stay so long in the court system. Delayed trials frustrate the public.’
However, during his term of office, instead of responding prudently to the judiciary’s case crisis, Buteera actively obstructed justice by refusing to give hearing dates to many politically sensitive cases.
Among them is the constitutional petition filed nearly four years ago by Justice Esther Kisaakye against Owiny-Dollo, secretary to the judiciary Pius Bigirimana and other judiciary honchos.
MR NICE GUY
A scrutiny of his voting record in three cases shows that when confronted with the great questions of the day he bailed. In the NRM rebel MPs’ controversy (Consolidated Petitions 16, 19, 21 and 25 of 2013), Buteera concurred with former DCJ Steven Kavuma and Justice Augustine Nshiimye.
The trio issued a majority decision that ordered MPs Theodore Ssekikubo, Wilfred Niwagaba, Mohammed Nsereko and Barnabas Tinkasimire to vacate their seats in the ninth parliament, merely because they had been dismissed from the ruling party.
In Constitutional Appeal 1 of 2015, a seven-judge panel of the Supreme court unanimously overturned this ludicrous verdict, thereby tightening the sinews of our nascent multiparty politics.
Buteera was not part of the Constitutional court panel that bravely declared an end to the tragic practice of prosecuting civilians in the military courts on July 1, 2021, in the watershed case of Michael Kabaziguruka v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition 45 of 2016).
However, 17 months and 14 days later, in Rtd Capt Amon Byarugaba & 169 Others v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition 44 of 2015), he joined Justice Monica Mugenyi in a minority opinion that vehemently distanced itself from the Kabaziguruka precedent.
Put simply, Buteera okayed the military justice system that was recently denounced as unconstitutional by the Supreme court.
Lastly, in Legal Brains Trust, Simon Kaggwa-Njala and Sulaiman Kakaire v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition 23 of 2015), Buteera presided over a five-bench panel that cited the fear of memes in this online era as its reason for upholding a parliamentary ban on media coverage of appointments committee proceedings.
The appeal against that decision is gathering dust at the Supreme court, awaiting to be fixed.
A WELCOME OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE
As ULS leadership, we promise to scrutinize the appointment procedures for Buteera’s successor, and thrust on them urgent institutional reforms to combat backlog and impunity.
In the meantime, in accordance with ULS’ Executive Order RNB No 2 of 2024, prescribing an era of a radical surgery of the judiciary, we recommend a comprehensive audit of all judgments rendered by DCJ Buteera during his tenure.
Buteera prioritized politeness (decorum) over principle (doctrine) and will be remembered for worsening backlog. His departure is a welcome opportunity for the judiciary to reclaim its integrity.
It is time for our judiciary to move on from Buteera’s ‘Mr Nice Guy’ legacy and its entrenched transactional culture. Buteera’s retirement is not an occasion for nostalgia.
It is rather a belated opportunity for our throttled judiciary to begin the arduous process of reclaiming its independence and integrity: an essential first step towards a judiciary that serves justice rather than power.
The departure of Buteera must mark the beginning, not the end, of our vigilance as the Radical New Bar. Never again should the rule of law be honoured through hollow ceremonies celebrating those who have spent careers undermining it.
The author is the president of Uganda Law Society.
Well said Mr. President. The article was exceptionally well-written and offered a fresh perspective. I appreciate the clarity and depth of your work.”
Semakadde: “It is rather a belated opportunity for our throttled judiciary to begin the arduous process of reclaiming its independence and integrity: an essential first step towards a judiciary that serves justice rather than power.” Unfortunately, there can’t be a belated opportunity for our throttled judiciary to begin the arduous process of reclaiming its independence and integrity. This can’t be an essential first step towards a judiciary that serves justice rather than power. That can’t happen under M7’s autocratic rule. For 40 years, and still counting, M7 has done nothing but to make certain that [essentially] the judiciary only serves the power. That’ll continue to be the case regardless of who replaces Buteera.
In my view, the problem is not Buteera. In other words, Buteera isn’t the root cause of lack of rule of law in Uganda. M7 [is] the problem and the root cause. As long as M7 still owns Uganda outright, the entire govt, executive, parliament and judiciary shall remain and/or continue to serve the power [M7]. Period.
Fellow Ugandans let’s not settle for replacements and/or changes of insignificant and meaningless individuals like Buteera. Even justice Kavuma was replaced. Chief of organized criminals Katurebe was also replaced by Dollo. I could go on and on. However, all those replacements are insignificant and meaningless because, they’re simply symptoms rather than the root cause. Our illness is M7. Ever since M7 came on the political scene, Uganda has never been the same. And since M7 captured our state by means of the gun and violence 1n 1986, things are only getting worse each and every day with no end in sight. To make matters worse, ever since Kyagulanyi came on the political scene to challenge M7 and declared that M7 is not the problem but Besigye who challenged M7 4 times and lost. In disguise to make money, Kyagulanyi made us believe that he was the real deal to the extent of motivating the youth that we, the people, have the power, which we do. However, Kyagulanyi assured us that there’s democracy in Uganda, but Besigye is the problem. So, Kyagulanyi replaced Besigye as the leading opposition figure and NUP replaced FDC as the leading opposition party in parliament. To Kyagulanyi, mission accomplished. Guess what? Now, all hope for change has completely despaired and we’re settling and celebrating for insignificant and meaningless replacements of individuals in the judiciary such as Buteera and Senyonyi as LoP in parliament!
Incredible piece with insight and depth!
…but so is the fate everything in this country and Africa – dead or dying!