Following President Museveni’s aggressive stance against bail, The Fatboy Show host James Onen has said that leaders need to contemplate the laws they amend lest they backfire on them.
President Museveni during the launch of the New Law Year on the February 4, 2022, said that granting of bail for capital offenders such as murder suspects is a provocation to the public that may prompt security agencies to start shooting suspects dead instead of arresting them, knowing that they can be released on bail despite vast evidence showing that they are guilty.
“Sometimes leaders need to think about the laws or changes they propose. Say in the future when Museveni is no longer president, some people may decide to sue him or bestow other legal challenges as we've seen in other countries with past presidents. And if you've been in power for over 30 years, chances are that you've pissed off enough people that will want to take such action against you,” Fatboy said.
He added, “Let's say one day there’s a new government and the people in charge decide to put the previous president on trial. I'd like the previous president to have his full human rights and legal rights respected, bail inclusive.”
The Presenter went on to say that he was shocked to hear the suggestion from the President who is mandated to protect and uphold the country’s constitution that he swore by. According to Fatboy, everyone deserves to be granted bail except for certain offences where still the right to grant bail has to be decided by the Judiciary.
Olive Najjuma, the Co-host of the show added, “The constitution already stipulates what's bailable and what's not, and so the prerogative to grant bail should lie with the Judiciary, not the Executive. It's like he’s pushing their hand on this issue.”
She stated that, “The President has started this conversation and is glueing onto it. Before long, we might have a referendum where we might have to adjust the constitution again to favour his sentiments. Now, if he's thrown into jail, will he want that to be reversed again to favour him?”
Citing sections of the public, politicians and members of the law society, Olive said that the move is said to be backing an ulterior motive that aims at keeping members of the opposition such as Allan Ssewanyana and Muhammed Ssegirinya battling Greater Masaka murder charges behind bars until they are sentenced.
“Scrapping bail of course will create room for abuse where it will be easy to accuse someone of a capital offence rightly or wrongly and use that to put them out of commission for an extended period of time and I think the existence of bail is to protect against that,” Fatboy reasoned.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, Sarah and Lesham every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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