Wednesday, May 28, 2008

"Such a limitation is not demonstrably justified in a free and democratic country like ours"

Just so nobody pretends we didn't see this, I'm putting it in a long link.

The Constitutional Court yesterday nullified a law that made it mandatory for Ugandans to seek written permission from the Inspector General of Police before holding an assembly or forming a procession in any public place.


Voilà! Read the story in its entirety at the Monitor. Basically, we can expect more demonstrations, now.
The only real trouble, now, is that there may be too many impromptu demos that have the easy capacity to turn into bad things. Since Police will not know about which demos are going to be where, any case of distracting public peace can be passed off, when prompted, as a demonstration.
I'm hoping this won't happen, hoping that we will be responsible with the power to demonstrate as soon as the urge hits by not demonstrating whenever any urge hits. But if it does happen, I guess we would slide back to requiring the state to be notified, which will have been a failure of this particular freedom; an experiment that didn't work.

I like the judge's words: "Such a limitation is not demonstrably justified in a free and democratic country like ours, therefore that provision of the Police Act is null and void."
Cool. Now, friends, let that closeted anarchist within you fly! Get on the street and demonstrate against something! :o) Kidding. Notify me first, okay?

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3 Comments:

Blogger gayuganda said...

Uh!

Posted by 27th?

Why do I think it is out of character? Dunno, may be I have read you wrong...

We tasted it. And were accused of Criminal Tresspass and Forgery. I dont know what the DP guys are going to be accused of. Police state?

June 9, 2008 at 1:52 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

its strange but after a couple of weeks i think the US court just almost used the same words to nullify gun control in washington DC. strange huh?

June 27, 2008 at 5:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there is quite a disjuncture between the Public and those in authority!once one gets into authority often the move is to curtail private citizens freedom and to forget where one is from, how sad human rule is!

July 9, 2008 at 11:37 AM  

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