{"id":26392,"date":"2016-06-27T01:38:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T01:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/uganda-search-for-justice-the-dilemma-of-mentally\/"},"modified":"2016-06-27T01:38:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T01:38:53","slug":"uganda-search-for-justice-the-dilemma-of-mentally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/uganda-search-for-justice-the-dilemma-of-mentally\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda:Search for justice: The dilemma of mentally ill inmates"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Nobody believed Eric Bushoborozi when he said he always heard voices. The voices, inside his head, would first talk, laugh and then bark at him. He played along. When the voices persisted, relatives advised that he sees a local Born-Again pastor. These voices, relatives said, were \u201cevil clan spirits.\u201d}<\/p>\n

He gladly did so, and after the church service, he took pain killers – the voices had been preceded by an intermittent throbbing headache, which he says, he had grown used to.<\/p>\n

On Friday, July 5, 2002, he went about his daily business but returned home early after feeling nauseated. What happened next, he does not remember. The heinous incident left the entire village of Rwimi, Kabarole District in downright shock.
\nBushoborozi crept with a machete to where his eight-year-old son was napping and cut his head off.<\/p>\n

Bushoborozi told police, and later argued in court that he saw and killed a big snake in his house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me in prison that I had killed my son,\u201d the 47-year-old recounted the events to this newspaper in a recent interview in the leafy gardens of Fort Portal High Court. \u201cThey said I was going for murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Records about his trial later that year are scanty but for such an atrocious crime, his file was swiftly processed and in an instant, paraded before the same court and remanded to Katojo prison in Fort Portal.
\nDuring the course of trial over the next four years, he underwent medical examination, and psychiatric evidence was presented, which confirmed that he suffered severe psychotic and deluded form of depression at the time he killed his son. So, he did not know what he was doing. And, he does not recall these details as well.<\/p>\n

{{The problem}}<\/p>\n

The voices inside Bushoborozi\u2019s head came along with seeing things others around him did not see, a problem that started in 1998 with constant bouts of a hard migraine headache \u2014 the kind with symptoms such as pain around the temples [sides of the head], sensitivity to light or sound, blurred vision and more often nausea, but which he shrugged off casually with an occasional visit to a drug store for pain killers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe headache would come and go; sometimes it would be very hard and other times light. I had been advised to take painkillers every time it came,\u201d he narrated. \u201cSometimes it would go even without taking the pills, so I got used.\u201d<\/p>\n

But year-in and year-out, the headache continued to grow stronger, but he continued to fight it by taking pills over the years, then came advice to see a pastor, and the grisly act that left everyone, including the Church very alarmed.<\/p>\n

According to a 2009 study published in the General Hospital Psychiatry, a bi-monthly peer-review research journal for publications on psychiatry, medicine, and primary care, migraine headaches can precede the onset of mental disorders.
\n\u201cTogether, migraine and mental disorders cause more impairment than alone,\u201d noted lead study author Gregory Ratcliffe, adding that: \u201cPatients who have one condition should be assessed for the other so they can be treated holistically. Although it is important to know that both are present, treating one will have an effect on the other.\u201d
\nDr Julius Muron, a consultant psychiatrist at the National Mental Referral Hospital, Butabika, says hearing voices or auditory hallucination, may or may not be associated with a mental health problem. \u201cBut it is usually a symptom of a mental problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

{{The case}}<\/p>\n

On December 1, 2006, Justice Rugadya Atwooki ruled that Bushoborozi was not guilty because of insanity under section 48 (1) of the Trial on Indictment Act. He was however, remanded back to Katojo Prison pending the minister\u2019s orders \u2013 the minister was to decide whether he would be taken for mental treatment or dealt with otherwise.
\nAfter being remanded in 2006 pending the minister\u2019s orders, no further action was taken. He spent another nine years on remand but at the same time while undergoing psychiatry examination, treatment and constant examination until release last year. In fact he would still be in prison by now, like other inmates of his calibre whose files were [and are every year] submitted to the Minister of Justice \u2014 who according to the law is supposed to study them take appropriate action.<\/p>\n

Bushoborozi\u2019s luck came around 2014, when a distant relative, Mr Cosmas Kateeba, a lawyer previously working in Kampala handled his case.<\/p>\n

On June 17 2014, Mr Kateeba, a former principal lecturer at the Law Development Centre (LDC), wrote to the Chief Registrar Paul Gadenya bringing to his attention the case of Bushoborizi but got not feedback.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, Mr Kateeba filed an application on behalf of Bushoborozi at the Fort Portal Court seeking among others, his release, and to strip the minister of powers to release mentally ill inmates found innocent by court.<\/p>\n

A landmark ruling was delivered on July 10 last year by the court\u2019s Judge David Batema stripping the minister of powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am of the strong belief that the trial court retains the power to issue special orders for the confinement, discharge, treatment or otherwise deal with the prisoner that is insane or has ceased to be insane. That criminal file remains open, pending the Judge\u2019s special orders. It is not done with until all is done with the prisoner\u201d ruled the judge, and further ordered for his immediate release.<\/p>\n

{{Paying the painful price}}<\/p>\n

The judge said the Constitution demands that the Judiciary must be independent in executing its work, and that having to wait for the minister\u2019s orders interfered with its independence.<\/p>\n

Even the State prosecutor Adam Wasswa, during the hearing of the case, conceded that the case was a complex one as there were no express procedures or solutions to the same.<\/p>\n

Bushoborozi went back to his family, he was lucky to find his wife still around, and relatives to embrace him again. The nine years he spent in jail, he worked as a tailor, and so he had some money to start a new life. He still undergoes examination but only periodically. <\/p>\n

Throughout our interview that ran for two days, he seemed fine; displayed an affable character with poise that hides his erstwhile despair.<\/p>\n

Human rights activists, authorities and legal experts alike, interviewed for this article all concluded that keeping mentally ill inmates behind bars is not only cruel but also demonstrates the ills in our criminal justice system at the time when government is striving to conjure up clean human right slate. But the problem, all officials, said is the law.<\/p>\n

Article 48 of the T.I.A gives powers to court on ruling on the special finding if not guilty by reason of insanity. When the court makes such a ruling, section 2 indicates, it \u201cshall report the case for the order of the Minister, and shall meanwhile order the accused to be kept in custody as a criminal lunatic in such place and in such manner as the court shall direct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Minister may order a person in respect of whom a special finding has been made to be confined in a mental hospital, prison or other suitable place of custody.\u201d
\n\u201cThe Minister clearly has no role in this, and it was until this point I was handling this case that I started wondering what the framers of the legislation were thinking,\u201d Mr Kateeba argued. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe might have won the first round [of stripping the minister of the powers] but the law still stands; this case can only serve as precedent in future legal challenges, which in fact should be waged, to scrap specific clauses [in the act] which do not make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bushoborozi might have been lucky but several people with his condition have not been as lucky. The list of such prisoners pending minister\u2019s orders as of 2016, according to available information to this newspaper, has about 40 inmates. All are in prison for either murder or defilement.<\/p>\n

These are committed in various prisons, in Luzira\u2019s Murchison Bay, Upper prison and Women\u2019 wing respectively, Katojo and Masaka Central prison. They were all tried, declared innocent on grounds of insanity and not fewer than 15 have served more than 15 years on remand.<\/p>\n

Through prisons publicist Frank Baine, the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr Johnson Byabashaija, turned down a written request by this newspaper to visit and access some of the inmates on grounds that \u201ca sane person cannot have meaningful conversation with a mentally unstable one\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Baine explained that Uganda Prisons Services as the custodian of all prisoners, is \u201ctaking good care of them.\u201d \u201cBecause it is all we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a challenge that we are facing, but what is clear is that those who are supposed to be addressing it are not concerned,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThere is a contradiction between the Trial on Indictments Act, which entrusts power over these people to the Minister, and Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution protect personal liberties and respect for human dignity, respectively. Being placed on remand like in the case of these people, means you are still on trial,\u201d he added, saying Article 23 does not stipulate how long should a trial last.<\/p>\n

Remand or pre-trial detention is the \u201clegally permitted time to spend in custody waiting trial or awaiting conclusion of the trial. The Constitution provides that in cases triable by the High Court as well as subordinate courts a person should be granted bail on such conditions as the court considers reasonable after for 60 days, and for cases triable only by the High Court 180 days before the case is committed.
\n\u201cThere are so many inconsistencies in the laws, but that is the work of lawyers and the judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even then, he said, \u201cthe challenge is that irrespective of how many recommendations are sent the Minister [politicians] do not seem committed to helping these people. So what if they release them and they go out there and do even worse?\u201d<\/p>\n

During our interaction with Bushoborozi, he acknowledged presence of the inmates whom he described as \u201cgreat friends\u201d, have been undergoing medication and \u201care now doing fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The responsibility of proving one\u2019s mental stability lies with the regional hospital psychiatry experts, who occasionally visits and examines these inmates. For a population of 34 million people Uganda has only 34 qualified psychiatrists. But each of the 13 regional referral hospitals have at least one psychiatry consultant.
\nWhen this paper contacted him recently, Justice minister Kahinda Otafiire said he was not aware there is any prisoner waiting for any of his orders to be released, and said if there is any, then probably, because the matter has never been brought to his attention. \u201cI will crosscheck if there is any file.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Katojo<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Nobody believed Eric Bushoborozi when he said he always heard voices. The voices, inside his head, would first talk, laugh and then bark at him. He played along. When the voices persisted, relatives advised that he sees a local Born-Again pastor. These voices, relatives said, were \u201cevil clan spirits.\u201d} He gladly did so, and after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[99],"byline":[2481],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-monitor"],"bylines":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}