Uganda's parliament is due to consider a new draft law proposed by the government that aims to increase state control over the country's non-governmental organizations (NGOs), whose existence and activities are already subject to stringent legal restriction. As a party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Uganda has an obligation to promote and protect freedom of association, including the right to form and join human rights and other NGOs.
Human Rights Watch opposes the new draft law and urges the Ugandan government to withdraw it. In addition, Human Rights Watch is calling on the government to repeal or else amend the current law regulating NGO activities, the Non-Governmental Organizations Registration Statute of 1989,1 in order to bring it into conformity with international law on freedom of association.
Under existing law, all NGOs in Uganda must be approved and registered by a government-appointed board composed mostly of government officials, including security officials, before they are allowed to operate. The board can refuse to register an NGO or may impose various conditions when approving it, and can abruptly terminate any NGO's registration on vague grounds. NGOs that operate without official approval are liable to fines and to have their office-holders jailed for up to one year if the fines are not paid.
The new draft law, the Non-Governmental Organizations Registration (Amendment) Bill,2 proposes additional controls. It would further complicate the registration process, requiring that NGOs also obtain a special permit from the registration board before they can operate. It would also increase the registration board's powers to reject or revoke an NGO's registration; and it would stiffen the penalties for operating without official sanction, thus raising the possibility that legitimate NGO activities may be criminalised.
NGOs currently make a hugely important contribution to Uganda's social, cultural and political life. Women's associations, human rights organizations, as well as many other civil society groups concerned with HIV/AIDS prevention and other health issues, promoting education, and broader development issues, operate throughout the country, despite existing controls. Both in their particular areas of focus and more generally, they help to foster and facilitate public debate and exchange on a wide range of questions. They encourage the expression of different views and, significantly, have been willing to address politically sensitive issues at a time when the Ugandan government continues to restrict ordinary political party activity. For example, prior to the July 2000 referendum on Uganda's political system, NGOs organized debates and other initiatives to inform the public about the choices before them and earlier this year, local NGOs led efforts to monitor the presidential elections that again returned President Yoweri Museveni to power. In addition, NGOs have been instrumental in pushing for peaceful solutions to the armed conflicts in northern and western Uganda, and have organized assistance for victims of those conflicts.
Political party activity remains highly constrained in Uganda. Since President Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) took power in 1986, he has ruled Uganda under the so called "Movement" or "no party" system. He has argued that an all-inclusive movement is more suited to Ugandan conditions than the multiparty system that formerly existed and is held to have contributed to the widespread violence and sectarianism that plagued Uganda in the 1970s and early 1980s. Under this system, all Ugandans are officially deemed to belong to the Movement and candidates for political office run on their personal merit, not as representatives of particular political parties. This is meant to encourage political participation at the grassroots. The country is governed by a pyramid of five levels of councils, from the village to the nation. In 1986, almost immediately upon taking power, the government issued a decree suspending political party activity. The 1995 constitution transformed the administrative ban into a legal ban, allowing political parties to exist in name but outlawing all activities normally associated with political parties. Article 269 of the Constitution prohibits opening and operating branch offices, holding delegates' conferences, holding rallies, or campaigning for a candidate in an election. Security forces have halted numerous political rallies, some through force, and leading opposition activists have been harassed and, sometimes, subjected to arbitrary arrest.3 In February 2001, Parliament passed a Political Organisations Law with a view to relaxing some of the restrictions placed on political parties, in particular allowing them to operate district offices. However, President Museveni has refused to sign this law, reiterating that party activities are only allowed at the national level.
The right to freedom of association, like the associated rights to freedom of expression and assembly, is well established in international law, notably in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Uganda ratified in 1996 and is thereby bound by treaty to uphold. Like the rights to assembly and expression, however, freedom of association is not an unqualified right. International law allows for restriction of the right but only on certain prescribed grounds and when particular circumstances apply. Any regulations that have the effect of restricting freedom of association must meet the specific standards contained in international human rights law to be permissible.
As this briefing paper shows, neither the new NGO bill, nor Uganda's current law on NGOs, the Non-Governmental Organizations Registration Statute of 1989, meet the applicable standards.
On 15 December 2000, the Minister of Internal Affairs proposed to parliament the Non-Governmental Organizations Registration (Amendment) Bill. The new NGO bill was discussed in the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Internal Affairs just weeks before the parliamentary elections on 26 June 2001, but was not taken any further. The new Ugandan parliament now faces the challenge of creating a new legal framework for relations between NGOs and the state.
1 Non-Governmental Organizations Registration Statute, 1989. Date of Assent: 10 August 1989; Date of Commencement: 29 September 1989.
2 The Non-Governmental Organizations Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2000. Bill No.26. Published in the Uganda Gazette No.73 Volume XCIII, 15 December 2000.
3 See also Human Rights Watch, Hostile to Democracy. The Movement System and Political Repression in Uganda. New York, August 1999; Human Rights Watch, Uganda: Not a Level Playing Field. Government Violations in the Lead-Up to the Election. Vol.13, No.(1) - March 2001.