Kampala — The Government has decided to appeal against the scrapping of the law on sedition by the Constitutional Court.

Information minister Kabakumba Masiko said the Constitutional Court, in its ruling, only concentrated on the acceptability of criticism of the President, ignoring other things provided by the law. Addressing journalists in Kampala yesterday, Kabakumba said the Attorney General (AG) had asked for the court's ruling to prepare the appeal to the Supreme Court.

She said the judges should have considered the fact that the law also provided for sedition that is committed to subvert a lawfully established government and the Constitution. Kabakumba cited section 39(1) (a), (b), (c) and (d) and (2) (a), (b) and (c), as the sections that the court ignored.

She said the court failed to properly consider section 39 (2), which provided for a wide range of defences, which in effect allowed wide political criticism of Government. The Government, she said, is not satisfied that the court did not address the fact that sedition is present in law books of leading democracies.

"It is a standard established by the Constitutional Court to consider the practices of countries which are free and democratic in assessing the constitutionality of laws. "However, while the AG presented different leading democracies such as the US, which have laws on sedition, it was not addressed by the court," she said. The court, Kabakumba said, was mistaken to say that the AG did not bring evidence proving that Mwenda's statements prejudiced national interests or security.