Trump, Ugandan courts and the 1995 constitution

The nations of the world are jointly, and severally, struggling with the lawlessness introduced by United States President Donald J Trump into the global order.

Indeed, the world he seems to be intent on creating is eerily similar to the state of nature articulated by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in which life was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. It is a world in which the lives of some are valorized, and the very humanity of others contested, or even denied.

It is one in which various black and brown immigrants to the United States are literally grabbed off the streets by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, while white citizens of South Africa are actively encouraged, and even incentivized, to move to the US as ‘refugees’ (alongside a wish for ‘nice’ immigrants from places like Sweden, Denmark and Norway).

Evidently, Trump who as a housing developer in the 1970s was sued for systematically rejecting black tenants, has not changed his spots. Simply put, he is a racist – one who in 2025 seems to be unabashedly so.

It is little wonder that several of his acolytes, including the late Charlie Kirk, no longer had any qualms about calling for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which introduced a measure of de jure equality for black people in the United States.

Trump is certainly not the first racist President the United States has had. Indeed, like many white men of the time, many of the first US Presidents kept slaves. A total of twelve US Presidents owned slaves at one point or the other, that is to say: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant (with eight of these keeping slaves while they served as President).

In more recent history, it was revealed that in a 1971 telephone call between then-President Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (then governor of California), the latter, annoyed that certain African delegates at the UN had voted against the US (on the recognition of China and the expulsion of Taiwan) said: ‘To see those… monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!’.

Apparently, Reagan also referred to the delegates from Tanzania as ‘cannibals’ who ‘weren’t even wearing shoes’. It is perhaps little wonder that Reagan (who would serve as US President from 1981 to 1989) was an unabashed supporter of Ian Smith’s white- minority regime in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) and of the apartheid government of South Africa.

One shudders to think what President Trump privately says of Africans, if he feels able to publicly refer to our States as ‘shithole countries’ The nations of the world are jointly, and severally, struggling with the lawlessness introduced by United States President Donald J Trump into the global order.

Indeed, the world he seems to be intent on creating is eerily similar to the state of nature articulated by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in which life was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. It is a world in which the lives of some are valorized, and the very humanity of others contested, or even denied.

It is one in which various black and brown immigrants to the United States are literally grabbed off the streets by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, while white citizens of South Africa are actively encouraged, and even incentivized, to move to the US as ‘refugees’ (alongside a wish for ‘nice’ immigrants from places like Sweden, Denmark and Norway).

Evidently, Trump who as a housing developer in the 1970s was sued for systematically rejecting black tenants, has not changed his spots. Simply put, he is a racist – one who in 2025 seems to be unabashedly so.

It is little wonder that several of his acolytes, including the late Charlie Kirk, no longer had any qualms about calling for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which introduced a measure of de jure equality for black people in the United States.

Trump is certainly not the first racist President the United States has had. Indeed, like many white men of the time, many of the first US Presidents kept slaves. A total of twelve US Presidents owned slaves at one point or the other, that is to say: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant (with eight of these keeping slaves while they served as President).

In more recent history, it was revealed that in a 1971 telephone call between then-President Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (then governor of California), the latter, annoyed that certain African delegates at the UN had voted against the US (on the recognition of China and the expulsion of Taiwan) said: ‘To see those… monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!’. Apparently, Reagan also referred to the delegates from Tanzania as ‘cannibals’ who ‘weren’t even wearing shoes’.

It is perhaps little wonder that Reagan (who would serve as US President from 1981 to 1989) was an unabashed supporter of Ian Smith’s white- minority regime in Rhodesia (present- day Zimbabwe) and of the apartheid government of South Africa.

One shudders to think what President Trump privately says of Africans, if he feels able to publicly refer to our States as ‘shithole countries’ The nations of the world are jointly, and severally, struggling with the lawlessness introduced by United States President Donald J Trump into the global order.

Indeed, the world he seems to be intent on creating is eerily similar to the state of nature articulated by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in which life was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’.

It is a world in which the lives of some are valorized, and the very humanity of others contested, or even denied. It is one in which various black and brown immigrants to the United States are literally grabbed off the streets by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, while white citizens of South Africa are actively encouraged, and even incentivized, to move to the US as ‘refugees’ (alongside a wish for ‘nice’ immigrants from places like Sweden, Denmark and Norway).

Evidently, Trump who as a housing developer in the 1970s was sued for systematically rejecting black tenants, has not changed his spots. Simply put, he is a racist – one who in 2025 seems to be unabashedly so.

It is little wonder that several of his acolytes, including the late Charlie Kirk, no longer had any qualms about calling for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which introduced a measure of de jure equality for black people in the United States. Trump is certainly not the first racist President the United States has had.

Indeed, like many white men of the time, many of the first US Presidents kept slaves. A total of twelve US Presidents owned slaves at one point or the other, that is to say: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant (with eight of these keeping slaves while they served as President).

In more recent history, it was revealed that in a 1971 telephone call between then-President Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (then governor of California), the latter, annoyed that certain African delegates at the UN had voted against the US (on the recognition of China and the expulsion of Taiwan) said: ‘To see those… monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!’.

Apparently, Reagan also referred to the delegates from Tanzania as ‘cannibals’ who ‘weren’t even wearing shoes’. It is perhaps little wonder that Reagan (who would serve as US President from 1981 to 1989) was an unabashed supporter of Ian Smith’s white- minority regime in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) and of the apartheid government of South Africa.

One shudders to think what President Trump privately says of Africans, if he feels able to publicly refer to our States as ‘shithole countries’ Museveni and Trump (in which our land and bodies are traded up for money, military cooperation and perhaps even regime survival).

Unfortunately, the Judiciary has over the years acquiesced in the desecration of the Constitution, the diminution of the meaning of Ugandan citizenship and the sanctity of institutions (including the courts themselves).

We do not have to look too far for examples of what might have been. Uganda and Kenya both signed the latest ‘health deals’. In Kenya, the matter was promptly challenged and a conservation order granted suspending the implementation of the pact until the determination of its constitutionality.

In Uganda – crickets. This is not because Ugandan civil society is not vibrant. Rather it is out of an increasing understanding that, at this point, the Judicial branch is all but dead.

It has both been killed over the years (including infection by its nexus to an imperial President who has now appointed all the Judges of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court) and has also participated in killing itself (including by granting a stay of execution of a decision of the Constitutional Court which had correctly determined the appointment of acting Judges to be unconstitutional).

There is now unfortunately little, if any, surprise when Judges increasingly issue decisions which make a mockery of even the clearest parts of the Constitution, such as provisions for mandatory bail (Article 23) and the right to habeas corpus (incidentally a non- derogable one under Article 44).

It appears that, having been directed by the courts to sit down and keep quiet, Ugandan citizens are increasingly doing just that. Looking away from the Courts, and turning instead to the streets – a most dangerous development.

It is also one which has not gone unnoticed by President Museveni, who last week said, very ominously: ‘One soldier carries 120 bullets… do the math. Uganda cannot be destabilized, and anyone who attempts it will live to regret.’

This is clearly a mathematics of death – one which can be directly linked to the jurisprudence of apathy articulated by the Judiciary in CEHURD (2015), Legal Brains Trust (2015), Male H Mabirizi (2018), ISER (2019) and Fox Odoi (2023), among others.

There is still a (very small) window for the Judiciary to play a role (even if an admittedly limited one) in undoing the damage wrought by the problematic jurisprudence above. At the very first opportunity, the Supreme Court should decisively recant, and discard, the dangerous position articulated in the above-cited ‘jurisprudence of apathy (and even death)’ and reassert the importance of public participation and active citizenship as a cornerstone for the robust defence of constitutional rights and liberties.

Failing this, the Courts and Ugandan citizens, will be left to look on as Ugandan dictators make common cause with American dictators – at which point, perhaps not even the Christ about to be born on Christmas day might be able to help us. I am sorry to end on this rather despondent note.

It has been a long and difficult year, and by all indications, the one next might not be any better. I propose to take off the month of January 2026 to rest and recuperate, with the result that we might only interact again on this page in February next year. Moreover, going by present indications (and previous experience), in all likelihood, the very internet on which we rely to write and read this column might be suspended in Uganda for substantial parts of January.

In any case, to you and yours – to the extent possible – happy holidays and a happy new year.

The writer is senior lecturer and director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) at the School of Law, Makerere University, where he teaches Constitutional Law and International Law.