UGANDA: 420 CONVICTS ON DEATH ROW

June 16, 2013: There are 420 currently convicts on death row in Uganda’s prisons, the Uganda Prisons Service has said.
The Spokesperson of Uganda Prisons Service, Frank Baine told New Vision online over the weekend that the convicts on death row were sentenced to death before the 2009 famous Supreme court ruling on the constitutional court petition by Susan Kigula and 417 death row convicts in which they challenged the constitutionality of the death sentence.
The convicts said that the laws that prescribed the death sentence as the maximum punishment for capital offences contravened several constitutional articles.
They also said that the delay for the actual execution to take place after the sentence contravened provisions of the country’s supreme law, adding that the Trial on Indictments Act which provides for hanging as the legal mode of carrying out the death sentence, was cruel, inhuman and degrading and contravened the constitution.
The Supreme Court ruled that death penalty was no longer mandatory but it did not stop courts from imposing it.
Baine said that there were about 600 death row convicts in prisons before the Supreme Court ruling. “Some of them had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment after the ruling,” Baine added.
The Prisons service publicist noted that due to the Supreme Court ruling, judges were being compelled to hand down long jail terms which are more or less “death sentences”. (Sources: newvision.co.ug, 16/06/2013)