Kampala, Uganda: The Uganda Law Society (ULS) has declared an all-out boycott of Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo’s Thanksgiving Ceremony slated for Saturday, July 12, 2025, in Patongo, citing deepening judicial interference, unlawful removal of time-sensitive appeals, and a growing constitutional crisis within the Judiciary.
This latest escalation comes in the wake of last week’s controversial de-causelisting of four high-profile ULS appeals by CJ Dollo’s Deputy, Justice Flavian Zeija, a move widely condemned by the legal fraternity as unlawful, biased, and a threat to judicial independence.
“If our appeals cannot be heard tomorrow as scheduled, there will be no going to Patongo,” ULS President Isaac Kimaze Ssemakadde wrote in a blistering letter addressed to the CJ on Wednesday, July 09, adding that the judiciary under his [Owiny-Dollo] reign had become “a willing hostage of political interests.”
Ssemakadde also warned that decauselisting Civil Appeal 102, concerning his own exile due to a controversial court order, “condemns the ULS President to ten years in political isolation,” a move he called judicial silencing, urging the CJ to reconsider the fate of the Bar.
The de-causelisted appeals, cited in Civil Appeals 61, 98, 99, and 102 of 2025, are not ordinary cases according to the Radical New Bar, as the they directly affect ULS’s constitutional mandate to: nominate representatives to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), convene Extraordinary General Meetings (EGMs), conduct internal elections for ULS leadership and defend its President from judicial harassment.
“Civil Appeal 99, for instance, deals with our constitutional obligation to send members to the Judicial Service Commission. That Commission is now incomplete, which undermines the legality of ongoing judicial appointments,” the ULS Eastern Bar wrote on Tuesday this week.
Mediation Excuse Rejected as “Cover-Up”
The Court of Appeal Registrar, on June 30 and July 3, announced the removal of the four ULS appeals from the July 10 cause list, claiming they had been “erroneously listed” without mandatory conferencing.
But both ULS and the East Africa Law Society (EALS) have rubbished this explanation, citing precedent from Security Group (U) Ltd v Marie Stopes Uganda (Civil Appeal 156 of 2013), which clearly states that conferencing is not a prerequisite to listing appeals for hearing.
The ULS further accuses under-fire Deputy CJ Zeija of shielding compromised litigants and buying time through a third round of mediation, supervised by himself, after two previous mediations had failed under Justices Remmy Kityabwire and Oscar Musisi.
“This is not mediation, it’s manipulation,” a senior member of the ULS executive told DailyExpress on condition of anonymity.
CJ Owiny-Dollo Accused of Blurring Judicial-Political Lines
In his July 9 letter, Ssemakadde aimed dig at the Chief Justice for hosting President Museveni at the Patongo Thanksgiving Party on the eve of the 2025 general election campaign season, calling it “a dangerous overlap between judicial office and political power.”
The ULS boycott marks a boiling point in a months-long crisis within Uganda’s legal system. Since early 2025, the Judiciary has come under fire for, among others, delaying key election-related appeals, allegedly suppressing the ULS President, interfering in bar governance, and fast-tracking politically sensitive rulings while sidelining institutional ones.
This judicial standoff has also drawn international concern, with the regional Bar Body (East Africa Law Society) issuing a scathing statement to demand the immediate reinstatement of the ULS appeals and threatening to escalate the matter to the East African Court of Justice and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
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