Court is In Session

Yesterday I went out on my first actual story with a New Vision reporter (oh, yes, this is Bill speaking), and we went straight to the top: the Uganda Supreme Court, which was scheduled to release a fairly noteworthy ruling. Last April, the court ruled unanimously that the presidential elections of February 2006 had not been free and fair, and that they had been tainted by quite a bit of fraud. However a four-member majority of the court also ruled that the problems with the election weren’t sufficient to overturn it. Since they made their ruling without saying what their reasoning was, everyone was waiting to find out.

It seems you wait a long time for things in Uganda, which helps you develop patience. We are in the process of opening a bank account, meaning we wanted to put a bunch of money in the bank, and as of today it has taken three visits to the bank and we’re not done yet (although they do finally have our money; we just can’t get at it).

Anyway, perhaps this helps explain why it took almost 10 months for the Supreme Court justices to write down their opinions in one of the most momentous cases they’ve ever handled.
The court building itself is not particularly grand, but when the justices filed in – an hour late, I should add – they certainly were grand: four of them (one has died since the ruling, two others were absent), clad in long bright red robes adorned with elaborate gold decorations, and all wearing the traditional British-style judge wigs. Very impressive!

The attorneys for both sides were there too – no wigs, but black robes and white ties – and a pretty full house of spectators, including We of the Press sitting on plastic patio-style chairs in this otherwise nicely appointed courtroom with its dark-wood benches, high judges’ podium, and overhead fans.

After all the fuss, only one of the four actually read his opinion (though very dramatically, which was nice), and we were done in an hour. Well, “done” is not exactly right. Somehow, although they had had 10 months to get it organized, most of the justices didn’t get their opinions written until a week or two ago, and so when We of the Press went to pick up copies, they weren’t ready. Ha!

Much shuttling back and forth, from hallway to law library to court clerk’s office, and eventually they produced the three available opinions on floppy disks, and the reporters proceeded to copy them onto the flash drives they all had dangling around their necks.

Verdict: One hour of waiting before the court arrived; one hour of actual action; and two hours of waiting for the opinions. Plus a half-hour on each end negotiating the Kampala roads. Ratio of waiting:activity – 4:1. Par for the course. We are learning to be patient and laid back, really we are!

If you’re interested in the result of the court rulings, by the way, see the story.