Uganda Parliament confirms military trials for civilians despite Supreme Court ruling

KAMPALA, Uganda

Uganda’s Parliament on Tuesday passed the contentious UPDF (Amendment) Bill, 2025, granting military courts sweeping powers to try civilians under certain circumstances, a move that directly contradicts a Supreme Court ruling issued just 109 days ago.

Clauses 29 and 30 of the Act give military tribunals jurisdiction over civilians found in possession of restricted weapons or accused of collaborating with soldiers in serious crimes such as treason, aggravated robbery, or murder.

The Act now awaits President Museveni’s assent, a procedural formality, given his vocal and sustained backing for the legislation.

On Tuesday, Opposition lawmakers condemned the law as a grave constitutional breach.

Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) Joel Ssenyonyi, who led a dramatic walkout from plenary, vowed a joint opposition legal challenge and denounced the Bill as “rushed and a draconian measure.”

Nansana Municipality MP Wakayima Musoke said “what the army is trying to do is create two parallel systems, which is unacceptable.”

“We were not given enough time to process all the ideas of the law and that is why we walked out,” MPs Musoke, Geofrey Kayemba Ssolo, and Geoffrey Lutaaya added.

Kioga North MP Moses Okot Bitek told plenary that military courts “cannot be impartial and independent, thereby making them unconstitutional and offensive to the principles of fair hearing and natural justice.”

At the centre of the dispute is the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling of January 31, 2025, which declared the trial of civilians in military courts unconstitutional.

The court ordered all such cases, including one involving prominent opposition figure Dr Kizza Besigye, his aide Obeid Lutale, and UPDF soldier Denis Oola—to be transferred to civilian courts.

The ruling was hailed by legal experts as a milestone for judicial independence and a win for constitutionalism.

On Tuesday, citing Article 92 of the Constitution, which prohibits Parliament from enacting laws that overturn specific court decisions, opposition lawmakers accused the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) of defying the judiciary in a bid to entrench executive power.

“This is an attempt to legitimize illegitimacy,” Ssenyonyi charged.

A minority report by opposition MP Jonathan Odur warned: “There’s no justification for going against the Supreme Court.”

Still, the NRM used its numerical dominance to bulldoze the legislation through Parliament, amid unusually heavy security deployment.

Sports state minister Peter Ogwang delivered an emotional defence of the Bill, recounting his traumatic past and revealing that his mother was raped by Karimojong warriors, an experience he said “shaped his support for stronger military enforcement.”

Soi MP Fadhil Chemaswet also acknowledged that "the military court martial plays an important role in maintaining discipline within the armed forces."

Second Deputy Prime Minister Gen Moses Ali made his first appearance in Parliament in over a year—a move Kalungu County MP Joseph Ssewungu Gonzaga interpreted as a sign of the executive’s determination to push the bill through.

Defence Minister Jacob Marksons Oboth-Oboth, who tabled the bill, argued it was a necessary step in protecting national security.

“This is not about persecuting ordinary Ugandans,” he said, adding that: “It is about those whose preoccupation is to endanger national security.”

Prominent legal experts have since last week raised alarms over the Bill. In an op-ed published Tuesday in Daily Monitor, advocate Denis Kusaasira, a member of the Uganda Law Society, warned against what he termed the “blanket trial of civilians in military courts.”

“The Bill defies the Supreme Court majority decision on civilian military trials. The mere involvement of a soldier does not justify stripping civilians of the protections afforded by the ordinary justice system,” he wrote.

Kusaasira suggested that “the Bill should provide that no civilian should be tried by a military court unless exceptional and compelling reasons can be demonstrated in each individual case.”

Analysts maintain that the UPDF (Amendment) Bill, 2025, though framed as a national security measure, has broader political implications.

With general elections scheduled for 2026, the law could give the government legal cover to silence dissent, intimidate the opposition, and deter civic activism.

The National Unity Platform (NUP), Uganda’s main opposition party, issued a scathing condemnation emphasizing that “this law would be deployed to terrorize regime opponents.

“It will be used to persecute regime opponents and deal with the growing resistance against the regime,” said NUP Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya.

In a parallel move, Parliament on Tuesday also passed the Political Parties and Organisations (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which restricts public funding to political parties registered under the National Consultative Forum (NCF).

The legislation, if enacted by the president, would halt public funding to political parties such as NUP, which is not affiliated with either the NCF or the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD).

Opposition UPC party president Jimmy Akena decried the Act saying: "I’ve not been consulted as a leader of the IPOD Summit. How is it that we are debating this issue? It is diabolical and has not been done in the interest of the players."

The Opposition Democratic Party legal officer Kenneth Nsubuga hailed the amendment as one to "create IPOD as a statute because some political parties which have been playing hide and seek especially on IPOD issues."

On his part, Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka defended the Political Parties and Organisations (Amendment) Bill, 2025, noting that "it seeks to reorganize the NCF."