Open letter to Attorney General: you rendered wrong advice to President, JSC

I have found it imperative to write to the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka this open letter regarding the following matters: Between January and March 18, 2021, you were part of the legal team that represented President Museveni before the Supreme court in the Kyagulanyi v Museveni.

On June 8, 2021, you were rewarded with an appointment as the Attorney General. You also became an ex- officio member of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) under the leadership of Justice Benjamin Kabiito.

With your full participation, the JSC transformed the general inquiry into the events that took place at the Supreme court of Uganda on March 18 and 19, 2021 into a discreet inquiry about me. The discreet inquiry culminated in the final report of the commission dated February 8, 2023.

In its report, the Kabiito commission in which you fully participated, claimed that it had found a prima facie case of my alleged misconduct and misbehavior and recommended to the President to set up a tribunal to investigate whether I should be removed from office as a justice of the Supreme court.

Given your involvement in the Kyagulanyi v Museveni petition for one of the parties which made you a potential witness to the JSC general inquiry and any related proceedings, your full participation in the JSC inquiry and deliberations was greatly prejudicial to me due to conflict of interest and bias and made the JSC report a nullity.

On March 23, 2023, you issued a statement accusing two reputable international human rights organizations, the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (CLA) of having issued coordinated statements about my case and the actions/omissions of the JSC.

You further claimed that the Justice Kabiito-led commission had made extensive investigations and that the two statements in question were full of falsehoods. If the Kabiito commission made extensive investigations into the events that took place at the Supreme court and reviewed video evidence, how could the commission have missed the grabbing of my files from the court at the time I was scheduled to deliver my reasoned rulings?

Again, how did the commission’s extensive investigations miss the admissions of Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo contained in his referral letter to the commission of April 6, 2021, that he had custody of my rulings and files and that he had even read it?

While Owiny-Dollo repeated these same admissions of having custody of my rulings and files in his affidavit you filed in support of the answer to Constitutional Petition No. 30 of 2022, you again conveniently preferred to maintain your lies.

Furthermore, you used the said statement to peddle naked lies to the people of Uganda and the international community about my judicial record and to absolve the JSC of any wrongdoing.

You did this well knowing that the very acts and omissions you were defending were already subject to constitutional challenges before the Constitutional court and that the court had not pronounced itself in favour of the commission.

You also made other false misrepresentations that my communications to the commission made on April 20, 2021, November 15, 2021, February 24, 2022 and the aborted ‘interface’ of February 8, 2023, were evidence of the commission having given me a hearing.

On July 18, 2023, I exercised my constitutional right to take early retirement from the Supreme court of Uganda and accordingly informed the President of Uganda. In October 2023, the President, acting on your advice, unconstitutionally deferred to accept my early retirement from the Supreme court, arguing that this would interrupt the work of the JSC which was looking into allegations I had made against the Chief Justice.

Given your role as the Attorney General, I believe you provided legal advice to the President not to accept my early retirement. Some of the very troubling arguments which are constitutionally and legally untenable that you have continued to put forward in reply to Constitutional Petitions No. 30 of 2022, No. 007 of 2023, and No. 25 of 2024 and in applications filed before the court, include the following:

• All the three petitions I filed before the Constitutional court raise no questions for constitutional interpretation, and are incompetent, misconceived, bad in law, frivolous, vexatious, prolix, without merit, and an abuse of court process.

• I am not competent to file constitutional petitions in the Constitutional court.

• I filed all the three petitions out of guilt for my misconduct.

• I filed the three petitions to frustrate the work of the tribunal of inquiry.

• The tribunal of inquiry has already commenced its work.

On February 6, 2025, close to four years after my alleged misconduct and two years after receiving the JSC recommendation, President Museveni finally set up a tribunal of inquiry into my conduct.

This tribunal lacks validity and legitimacy for all the reasons I have laid out in my earlier commentary. In April, 2025, your office also filed pleadings in the Constitutional court and asserted affirmatively that the tribunal of inquiry into my alleged misconduct had commenced its work.

Your claims were exposed as blatant lies by Justice Okello, (the tribunal’s chairperson) in his letter dated May 27, 2025, which he wrote in response to my lawyer’s letter of May 19, 2025.

Your lies to the Constitutional court are another confirmation of how far you are ready to act unprofessionally and unethically to mislead the Constitutional court and to aid and abet the violation of our Constitution.

Furthermore, seven months have passed since the tribunal was established. Yet, neither I, the subject of its inquiry nor the people of Uganda have ever heard from it or even know where it is operating from.

It is evident from the examples I have cited in this letter that since your appointment as the Attorney of General, you render outrightly wrong legal advice to the JSC, the President, different actors named as respondents in petitions filed in the Constitutional court in respect of their actions and/or omissions, and to your staff.

Furthermore, you have failed to discharge your duties professionally and ethically in a manner befitting of your office and have continued to act even where your clear judgment has been impacted by conflict of interest, actual or perceived bias, partisan inclinations and sometimes even outright incompetence.

You have also exhibited little regard for the supremacy of the Constitution, and for the importance of upholding and safeguarding the independence of the judiciary in our country.

Your failure to render correct legal advice will be a complete waste of national resources. These multiple errors of judgment on your part send alarm bells about your fitness to continue serving as the Attorney General.

As the country prepares for the January, 2026 elections, several media reports have reported that you are focused your attention on canvassing votes for the ruling party fully adorned in party colours.

In contrast, throughout your tenure, you have shown less concern about the full constitution of the Supreme court of Uganda, which is the constitutionally designated arbiter of presidential election disputes in Uganda.

Because of your incompetent legal advice, the Supreme court has limped on for over four and a half years without my services or the services of another Justice who would have replaced me after my early retirement on July18, 2023.

Many constitutional appeals cannot be heard due to lack of coram, and this situation is likely to persist in the 2026-2031 election cycle, all under your watch!

WAY FORWARD

Considering all the matters I have raised in this letter, I request you to reconsider and to retract your wrong advice and to give the correct advice which should be consistent with the Constitution and laws of Uganda, to President, the JSC and others on all the matters under reference in this letter.

On the other hand, if you believe the legal advice you gave is correct, I challenge you as a legal professional to a public debate on the issues I have raised. The modalities of the debate will be communicated after receiving your response.

If neither of the above alternatives are acceptable to you, I call upon you to step down as the Attorney General so you can save the country any further erosion of constitutionalism, the rule of law, judicial independence, and any further personal and professional embarrassment.

Take note that I have also brought these matters to the attention of the President and for the same reasons, urged him to relieve you of your duties as Attorney General in the best interest of our country.

Lastly, take note that your current connections to the seat of power will not last forever. History has taught us repeatedly that those who live under the delusion that they are untouchable and that they can get away with anything and everything, will eventually be made accountable for their actions.

You would do yourself and your family well to respect and uphold our Constitution.

The author is a retired justice of the Supreme Court.