President Museveni’s longtime friend and lawyer Dr Elly Karuhanga the founding patterner of Kampala Associated Advocate (KAA) one of the largest law firms in Kampala has cried to Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Norbert Mao to do him a favour and save Uganda Law Society president Isaac Kimaze Ssemakadde from staying in exile.
Karuhanga who praised Mao for being an open minded person and speaks for the good of the country told the Democratic Party (DP) boss to be open against wrong things being done by government officials adding that he knows him as a person who can compromise anything for the good of the country and can use those skills to save Ssemakadde.
Karunga opined that Ssemakadde’s self exile is placing Uganda as a country in bad light internationally.
He explained that it is a shame seeing Ssemakadde who was overwhelmingly voted as the president of the Uganda law society and very much loved by young lawyers who looked at him as a person who was going to liberate them and give the society a new breath of life being exiled and working out of his office because he annoyed some big people.
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He insisted that Ssemakadde is not a bad person as some people think and it is going to be a bad thing for him to end his term as a president of the law society in exile
Karuhanga further pleaded with Mao to save lawyers from being cheated by government officials after spending their own money and time prosecuting cases against government especially those that involve compensation but after winning cases, the responsible government offices tell them to go with nothing by paying money directly to the affected persons.
This website established that under the advice of the president, Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka directed that all the money that government compensates individuals as a result of court awards should be directly paid to them not through their lawyers as it was before.
Sources said that the decision resulted from a lot of complaints the president was receiving from his people that they were not receiving the money they were being awarded by the government as compensation because lawyers eat all the money they are supposed to receive.
In a response through an X space organized by city lawyer Elison Karuhanga, Mao openly confirmed to Mzee Karuhanga that it is not going to be an easy job for him to save Ssemakadde but he will try to save the man from Bukomansimbi to return back to his home country.
He said that he has already started the process of mediating the aggrieved people and also end the fight between lawyers and judges noting that it will be bad for Chief Justice Owiny Dollo to retire next year from the Office of the Chief Justice and leaving behind a trail of fights.
He said that he has engaged a number of stakeholders including Kiryowa Kiwanuka and they are all ready to hold talks and end the fighting.
He advised Ssemakadde to return to the country and assured him that nothing will happen to him. He even offered to pick him from Entebbe International Airport once he touches Ugandan soil.
He also pleaded with judicial officers to stop weaponizing courts to settle their personal grievances especially through contempt of Court offences.
Mao made the assurance after Criminal Division of the High Court judge Paul Gadenya allowed Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Ronald Kayizzi to proceed with criminal charges against Ssemakadde
Two lawyers Joshua Byamazima and Tonny Tumukunde filed a private criminal prosecution case against Ssemakadde for using bad language which undermined the person of Justice Jane Frances Abodo the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) as a woman.
An international arrest warrant was issued against Ssemakadde even though his lawyers are fighting to overturn the two years imprisonment slapped on him by then then High Court judge Musa Ssekaana on contempt of court offences.
Ssemakadde is a celebrated human rights lawyer who has saved a number of journalists and political activists from being persecuted and prosecuted by big government officials and the state itself.
