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How Will Uganda President's Call on Bail Impact Judiciary?

President Yoweri Museveni, despite strong opposition from Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, his own party, the National Resistance Movement and various legal and human rights experts, has called for the scrapping of bail for suspected capital offenders and the reinstatement of the mandatory death penalty.

The president said that lenient sentences such as life imprisonment have encouraged crime, while provisions such as bail leave victims clamouring for justice.

Opposition Democratic Party's Richard Lumu said his party opposes the call. "The law as is on matters of bail, are sufficient and it should not be tampered with. An attempt to reduce the power of judicial officers in determining matters of bail application will only serve to fail the judicial independence further," he said.

GCIS/Flickr

(file photo).

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