In the latest President Museveni-government spat, Chief Justice Bert Katureebe has castigated the Inspector General of Government Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza for pardoning corrupt magistrates caught red-handed in acts of corruption.
Justice Katureebe claimed at the Annual Law Conference in Entebbe over the weekend that former High Court judge Mulyagonja’s decisions were breeding the perception of wide-scale corruption in the judiciary.
He gave two examples; one incident in West Nile where the IGG arrested a magistrate who had asked for a Shs1 million bribe in a traffic offense to grant bail to the suspect in the alleged offence and even caught receiving the bribe. Katureebe narrated how the IGG came out after the arrest claiming that it would not be logical to spend millions of shillings prosecuting the magistrate yet the evidence they had against him could only prove a corruption case of shs250,000 fine.
The other incident was of a magistrate who asked for a Shs3m bribe from peasants battling a land case with a rich man to rule in their favour or would shift the win to the rich man who was offering him a bigger bribe of shs10m.
Justice Katureebe told the legal fraternity at Imperial Resort Beach Hotel on Friday that he had been called by a lawyer over the matter and he laid a trap to catch the magistrate who was receiving a shs1.5m bribe from the desperate peasants. The arrested magistrate was let off the hook by IGG Mulyagonja after pleading for pardon, saying his name would be soiled if he was prosecuted.
After walking free, the unnamed magistrate then retired from the judicial service, which he did with full terminal benefits.
“I don’t mind madam IGG how much the bribe is. Theft is theft. Whether someone has taken Shs1b or Shs1m or even Shs50,000, which doesn’t rightfully belong to him or her that is theft. How much should one steal to warrant prosecution,” told the cheering lawyers. IGG Irene Mulyagonja was also attending the conference who in response said her approach as a prosecutor of corruption maybe different from that of the Chief Justice.
“Prosecution is very expensive, takes an average of two years and we also have a few prosecutors,” IGG Mulyagonja told Daily Monitor’s Anthony Wekesa.
