A High Court Clerk attached to the Land Division of the High Court placed the entire court room in panic when she ordered the arrest of a senior female journalist attached to Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) because she was covering a fraud land case involving Watoto Childcare Ministries.
“Where is security, court orderlies please arrest her. Who gave her permission to bring her cameras here. Journalists are not supposed to cover this case please move out all of you,” the court clerk ordered.
She was supported by Watoto’s lead counsel Ronald Oine who practices with Tumusiime Kabega and Company Advocate who threatened the female journalist once she captures him without his permission.
Oine wandered who brought journalists in his client’s case.
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Journalists were saved by Justice Christine Echookit Akello who is presiding over the matter.
When she entered the court room, both Oine and the female clerk ignored the matter and concentrated on reading the file where professor Fredrick Njuki is accusing his elder brother Steven Ian Nsubuga of fraudulently selling his land which he inherited from his father to Watoto.
After the adjournment of the matter, journalists led by senior court reporter Ephraim Kasozi protested the gesture of the female court clerk intimidating a journalist.
Kasozi noted that they will make sure that the matter is reported to top judiciary leaders and Oine’s bosses.
“You will do nothing, you’re nothing, who told you that you just come in the courtroom and just take our pictures like that,” Oine boasted.
The journalists agreed to let the matter go after establishing that the Clerk was compromised and used to shield a certain party involved in the fraud from being exposed.
However, some opined that the matter should be addressed to judiciary top leadership because the whole journalism professional was insulted through the incident and something should be done to prevent it from happening again to another member of the media.
When the matter was adjourned to Friday morning, this time journalists were shocked to find two counter terrorism policemen standing at the courtroom door.
They did not allow journalists from entering the courtroom and when they were asked where they got the orders stopping journalists from covering the matter, they referred them to the clerk who insulted their colleague.
Journalists insisted on having audience with the judge but they were stopped by the Clerk through the judge’s bodyguard and their next move was to seek help from the judiciary’s communications department.
His worship James Ereemye the Judiciary Public Relations Officer and also the spokesperson advised the journalist to seek audience with the deputy registrar of the Land Division.
He was shocked to learn that a court clerk was ordering the arrest of a journalist.
She referred the matter to her assistant who is in charge of the operation at the Division who involved the Judge’s assistants and one of them claimed that Justice Akello is the one who banned journalists from covering the matter.
“Okay, let me write a note for you and you take it to her to confirm if she is the one who banned journalists from covering that matter. I can’t go there because she is already inside the Courtroom,” the registrar stated.
The judge was shocked to learn that journalists were banned from covering the matter with claims that she was the one who gave the orders. She allowed journalists to enter and cover the matter as the clerk looked at them with with a lot of anger in her eyes.
Covering courts has been a difficult job these days because some judicial officers have made it a habit to prevent journalists from taking their pictures even in the open court.
“We should address this matter very fast with the judiciary’s top leadership because our job is under attack. If even clerks have now started giving orders to have us arrested, it shows that the situation has gone out of hand. Blocking us from covering court proceedings will result into bad reporting because lawyers will intentionally mislead us and give us inaccurate information,” a senior court reporter said.
It should be remembered that Justice Lydia Mugambe of the High Court issued a Court order blocking then Buganda Road Court magistrate Lilian Buchana from hindering journalist from covering a criminal case involving former Inspector General of Police Gen Kale Kayihura and the matter was taken to Court of Uganda Court Reporters Association (UCRA) led by their then president Mathius Rukundo and Alex Bukumuhne who was in charge of human rights and training.
