On 5 December, we at the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) received an alert from Uganda’s Constitutional Court.
The court was about to pass judgment in our case challenging the constitutionality of parts of the offence of being rogue and vagabond.
Vagrancy offences were part of a retinue of laws introduced during the colonial era to ensure cheap labour for imperial ventures and to control the movement of “natives” into areas seen as the preserve of white people. The case filed by Francis Tumwesige – with the support of the HRAPF – argued that these laws were being used to violate the rights of poor and marginalised members of society.
