Uganda and courts-martial

It is reported that President Museveni has appointed Brig-General Richard Tukachungurwa as Chairperson of the General Court Martial.

Prominent human rights lawyers have sharply criticised President Museveni’s appointment of Brigadier-General Richard Tukachungurwa as Chairperson of the General Court Martial, describing the move as a grave setback for justice, accountability, and the rule of law in Uganda.

Brig Tukachungurwa — the military officer who presided over the dramatic January 2025 confrontation that saw lawyer Eron Kiiza arrested, convicted, and jailed inside the General Court Martial — was appointed on November 25 to replace Brig Robert Freeman Mugabe, whose term expired in June.

His promotion has reignited concerns over the independence and conduct of the military justice system.

Reacting on Wednesday, human rights lawyer Kiiza condemned the appointment in the strongest terms, saying it signalled deep institutional decay.

Nile Post, 3 December 2025.

Expert Q & A on the boat strikes

There's been a great deal of insightful writing about the boat strikes -- none of it better than this essay by Tess Bridgeman, Michael Schmitt and Ryan Goodman at Just Security. BZ.

Professional responsibility and the boat strikes

Major General (ret) Steven J. Lepper, Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Dan Maurer, and the Editor have write here about some of the professional responsibility issues arising from the United States boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Excerpt:

What is not acceptable is for an officer who harbors substantial professional misgivings about a proposed mission to remain silent in the face of some other lawyer’s faulty, unexplained, or irresponsible opinion. Silence is not a hallmark of the exercise of independent judgment. Neither is failing to commit one’s professional assessment to writing. Remaining silent or in the shadows will be viewed as acceptance down the road, possibly after a mission has gone sideways.

When the dust settles and more is known about the boat strikes, we hope light will be shed on the extent to which the rules of professional conduct came into play in the operation and whether they proved an aid or a hindrance to the lawyering process and command decision-making.

Does what happens in the barracks stay there? (A note from Switzerland)

The Tribune de Genève has the story here -- with a good summary of Swiss military justice to boot. (Google Translate does a good job withv this.) Excerpt:

If the conviction that concerns you appears on your son's criminal record, he will need to be aware of it in certain situations in his daily life. A prospective employer may request a criminal record extract, particularly for sensitive positions. However, the criminal record extract available to individuals is more limited than the one accessible to authorities. Furthermore, entries are not permanent: they are automatically removed after a certain period, which depends on the seriousness of the offense.

Your son can request his own criminal record extract to know exactly what is included. This will allow him to better anticipate situations where his past might be examined and to prepare contextualized explanations if necessary.

Ultimately, a military conviction is not necessarily a dead end for civilian life. It all depends on its nature and severity. In many cases, the impact remains limited, especially if your son now demonstrates exemplary behavior.

Is Pakistan's 27th Amendment to the Constitution constitutional?

The Lahore High Court Bar Association thinks not, and that as a result, the intra-court appeals concerning the exercise of court-martial jurisdiction over civilians must be returned from the new Federal Constitutional Court to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Details from the bar's submission can be found here. Excerpt from Dawn's report:

The application contended that the 27th Ame­ndment was in violation of the salient and essential features of the Constitution, stating that the 1973 Constitution defined the powers of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.

“While parliament possesses the power to amend the Constitution, it does not function as a constituent assembly and is subject to both express and implied limitations,” it added.

The application pointed out that the jurisprudence of the SC — most recently the authoritative 17-member judgement in the Rawalpindi District Bar Association case — had affirmed that parliament could not, through any amendment, alter or abrogate the salient or essential features of the Constitution, including the independence of the judiciary.

The application pleaded that both the 26th and 27th amendments impermissibly encroached upon judicial independence and restructured the constitutional architecture in a manner inconsistent with these unamendable features. Therefore, they constituted an invalid exercise of amendatory power.

It argued that a constitutional amendment, which undermined judicial independence while simultaneously divesting pre-existing constitutional courts of jurisdiction to examine its validity, violated fundamental constitutional principles.

“If permitted, parliament can abolish or replace the forum for constitutional adjudication at will, thereby insulating unconstitutional amendments from judicial scrutiny,” the plea feared.

The application further noted that the SC had consistently distinguished betw­een “jurisdiction” and “judicial power”.

“Even where parliament modifies jurisdiction, judicial power — i.e. the authority to determine whether jurisdiction exists — remains inherent in the superior judiciary,” it read.

“Accordingly, notwithstanding the 27th Amendment, it lies within the judicial power of the SC to determine whether it has been validly divested of jurisdiction. The subject appeal must therefore be restored to the SC for that purpose.”