Controversial Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Rita Kidasa Wanyama has announced the 21st August, 2026 as the date on which she will pronounce herself on maverick city lawyer Male Mabirizi’s fifth attempt to be released from prison on mandatory bail.
On Tuesday, Mabirizi pleaded to Kidasa who is also wife to New Vision Chief Executive Officer Don Wanyama to exercise her powers as a magistrate and release him from prison after spending 60 days on remand without his criminal trial kicking-off.
Mabirizi presented a number of authorities including the recent ones made by Justice Paul Gadenya and David Matovu of the Criminal Division of the High Court where they noted that mandatory bail doesn’t need the applicant to present sureties apart from proving through a court record that he has spent the mandatory days without his trial kicking-off.
Mabirizi was arrested in February 2026 after complaints from the Chief Justice Dr Flavian Zeija and Court of Appeal judge Musa Ssekaana who accused him of using his social media platforms to attack their character and personality.
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He was charged under the Computer Misuse Act, but state amended the charge sheet after the Constitutional Court annulled part of the said Act declaring it unconstitutional.
Since February, Kidasa has been dismissing Mabirizi’s bail applications.
In the first attempt, she first cited the expiration of the identity cards of the sureties he presented to Court.
When his sureties presented to court documents from NIRA showing that they had applied for renewal of their national identity card and haven’t yet receive the new ones, the magistrate abandoned the application noting that she was supposed to handle the recusal application which Mabirizi made against her, which she also dismissed.
Mabirizi made another recusal application accusing Kidasa of using his criminal trial to revenge on him for filing a complaint against her at the Judicial Service Commission seeking her removal from the office of the judicial officer.
Mabirizi also instituted a private criminal prosecution against Kidasa at the Criminal Division of the High Court where he accused her of violating his fundamental human rights and also through the Attorney General, dragged her to the East African Court of Justice.
Since May 2026, Kidasa has been snubbing court whenever Mabirizi appears which forced Uganda Law Society president Senior Council Isaac Ssemakadde to intervene and file a human rights enforcement application against the Attorney General protesting the way the magistrate and the state were handling Mabirizi’s trial.
The application was allocated to Law Development Centre Chief Magistrate Timothy Lumunye and he set 25th of August as its hearing date.
