By Joseph Mary Buule
KAMPALA.Attorney General Sam Mayanja has said the Constitution protects the rights of former Butambala County MP Muwanga Kivumbi following his arrest after being granted bail on a terrorism related charge.
Responding to Leader of the Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi, Mayanja insisted that Uganda remains under “a dispensation of constitutionalism,” citing Article 23, which says a person arrested, restricted or detained must be kept in a place authorized by law and informed immediately, in a language they understand, of the reason for arrest and their right to a lawyer of choice.
Ssenyonyi told Parliament that Kivumbi was intercepted by security forces at a traffic checkpoint in Mpigi Town on his way to Kampala a day after his release on bail, describing the incident as an “abduction” rather than an arrest and questioning whether it signaled “the new normal.”
He said Kivumbi, who had spent nearly six months on remand, was arrested last Friday hours after vowing to intensify the opposition campaign against the ruling NRM,which has been in power for four decades and still counting.This followed Kivumbi’s bail in a case in which he was charged alongside 22 others over post-election violence in Butambala District last January.