Govt wants suspects held for 3 months

NEWS | February 15, 2009
Govt wants suspects held for 3 months
MERCY NALUGO
Parliament
The government is pushing for an amendment in the Constitution to introduce a new law to have suspects produced before courts of law within 90days instead of the 48 hours which is presently stipulated by law.
The proposal if enacted into law would mean that all terrorism suspects and suspected high level criminals would be detained for three months without trial.
However, the Constitution stipulates that no person shall be detained beyond 48 hours without being produced in courts.
Article 23(4)b says that suspects are brought to court not later than 48 hours from the time of arrest. Defence Minister, Dr Crispus Kiyonga, tabled the proposal before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee currently discussing recommendations of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) in the their annual reports that have been issued between 1999-2007.
“We are making a formal request that the 48 hour in the law is not very practical; we are asking Parliament to amend this particular clause so that the hours are extended to three months,” Dr Kiyonga said on Friday. “The practical difficulty of interrogating suspects of serious crimes has led to the abuse of this law with much regret,” the minister said.
The UHRC has over the years observed that security agencies were detaining suspects illegally without trial for more than 48 hours.
Dr Kiyonga reasoned that the 48 hours are not enough to allow security forces carry out enough investigations before a suspect is produced in the court for trial.
“We in the Ministry of Defence and the army are saying that certain crimes need to be investigated thoroughly, for example, the terrorists are callous and very clever. If you say that within 48 hours we have gathered enough evidence then it affects our work,” he said.
He cited Britain where the law was amended in 2006 to provide for up to 28 days detention without trial.
Committee Chairperson, Steven Tashobya (NRM, Kajara County) said the three months is a long period.
“But these are views of the Ministry of Defence. As a Committee; we shall analyse them so that we come up with good recommendations putting in mind the security of the country vis-à-vis people’s human rights ,” Mr Tashobya said.