Punlic Accounts Committee Members of Parliament were stunned to hear that general court martial is yet to transfer all the case files as directed by the Supreme court.
It’s almost a month after the Supreme Court annulled the trial of civilians at the General Court Martial.
However, the Directorate of Public Prosecution is yet to receive all the files of people jailed under the directive of the Military Court, and the Directorate is not aware of how many files the Military Court is still onto.
The revelation was made by George William Byansi, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions – Inspections, Quality Assurance, Research and Training, while appearing before this committee where the legislators expressed concerns over the delayed perusal of these files by the Directorate.
His remarks were in response to a question raised by Butambala County Legislator Hon Muwanga Kivumbi, Chairperson Public Accounts Committee, who tasked the DPP to provide an update on the number of cases that have so far been received by the DPP from the General Court Martial.
“On the Constitutional Court ruling and the so many prisoners who are supposed to be transferred from the Court Martial to the Civil Courts, why is it taking this long to do that transfer by your office? It is of paramount interest to Ugandans. And how many are they? We may be speaking about the National Unity Platform people, the other prisoners, these numbers have a spokespersons, they have the Party. What of the others? How about those that don’t belong to the Party that I belong to and aren’t in the caliber of Dr. Kizza Besigye. And how many people are we talking about that are in the Court Martial and following the court judgment, ought to be transferred?” asked Kivumbi.
