FHRI joins the Death Penalty Project (UK) to celebrate its nomination for the national award.

The Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) in partnership with the Death Penalty Project (UK) continued to advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in Uganda. FHRI worked with the Death Penalty Project (UK) in 2009 and 2010 under the project “Promoting Justice and the Rule of Law: Assistance for prisoners under sentence of Death in Uganda”. Katende, Sempebwa and Co. Advocates was sub contracted with legal representation of prisoners on death row.

Following the ruling in 2006 by the Constitutional Court in Attorney General vs Susan Kigula and 417 others Constitutional Appeal No. 3 of 2006 and the Supreme Court ruling in 2009 the death penalty sentence is still constitutional. However, there were positive development from the ruling which are: the death sentence is no longer mandatory; prisoners who had spent three years on death row after exhausting their appeal to the Supreme Court had their appeal commuted to life imprisonment; and following the judgment, all prisoners who where on death row at the time of the ruling were categorized for either life imprisonment or the mitigation process.

 

The precedent set by the Susan Kigula Supreme court decision has had multiplier effects: the release of some inmates on death row, the development of sentencing guidelines in capital cases and the commencement of mitigation hearings for all persons charged with capital offences. The campaign against the death penalty spearheaded by FHRI has evolved into a regional one. With the East African Civil Society Coalition, regional and international advocacy missions have been undertaken with international NGOs like the World Coalition against the Death Penalty and International Commission against the Death Penalty.

For more information about the Death Penalty project, visit www.deathpenaltyproject.org