Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has assented to the controversial Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (Amendment) Act, 2025, which grants protection pressure courts the facility to are attempting civilians. In Can also this year, Contributors of Parliament from the ruling National Resistance Plod (NRM), leveraging their numerical energy, passed the UPDF (Amendment) Bill, 2025. The new guidelines paves the ability for civilians to be tried in protection pressure courts, a transfer that has sparked popular criticism.
On Monday, Parliament presented on its legit X (beforehand Twitter) story that the President had signed the invoice into guidelines. The put up incorporated screenshots of the assented act. The guidelines introduces main reforms to the protection pressure justice scheme. It restructures correctly being companies for militia personnel and streamlines the handling of veterans’ affairs.
Part 117A of the Act creates Schedule B, which outlines protection pressure stores idea to be as the uncommon support of the Defence Forces, including items such as ceremonial sneakers for officers and troopers. Part 83 introduces Schedule 7A, which classifies pistols and a amount of weapons as restricted items below the monopoly of the Defence Forces.
The act additionally establishes a Directorate of Militia Prosecutions to professionalize the prosecution process. The director must be a serving member of the protection forces, no longer under the corrupt of colonel, and qualified to be appointed a high court docket mediate.
The guidelines lays out a clear appellate construction for defense pressure court docket choices, transferring from the Unit Court docket Martial to the Division Court docket Martial, then to the Frequent Court docket Martial, followed by the Court docket of Charm, and finally, the Supreme Court docket. Essentially based fully mostly on Part 202C, contributors of courts martial are required to be fair and fair in the performance of their judicial capabilities and shall no longer be self-discipline to repeat.
The chairperson of the unit court docket-martial must handle a Bachelor of Laws diploma and a postgraduate diploma in simply be aware. The guidelines is widely seen as a actual now response to the Supreme Court docket’s ruling in Prison professional Frequent vs. Hon. Michael A. Kabaziguruka, a constitutional allure that realized that the trial of civilians in protection pressure courts below the previous UPDF Act was unconstitutional.
On the replacement hand, opposition MPs hang vowed to order the new guidelines in court docket, accusing the authorities of acting in contempt of the Supreme Court docket’s directive and failing to conduct enough public consultations. Civil society actors hang additionally echoed connected sentiments, having beforehand participated in efforts that ended in the court docket’s ruling against attempting civilians in protection pressure courts.
President Museveni, while addressing residents from the Higher Luwero District, praised MPs for passing the guidelines. He argued that it may perchance perchance probably merit curb the misuse of protection pressure instruments and combat armed criminal activity extra successfully.
“There was going to be a severe order,” Museveni said. “Some of us had been announcing that if a soldier commits crimes such as ruin, theft, or rape, they’d perchance composed be taken to sub-county (civilian) courts in possibility to court docket martial. These who had been fervent must repent. There was going to be a severe collision between the navy, Parliament, and the courts of guidelines, nevertheless they’ve saved us from embarrassment.”
