Category: politics

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Appears on Parliament’s To-Do List

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is listed on today’s order paper under the heading of “Notice of Business to Follow.”

NOTICE OF BUSINESS TO FOLLOW 

  1. MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT TO URGE GOVERNMENT TO BAIL OUT SEMBULE STEEL MILLS LTD FROM THE INTENDED SALE OF ITS PROPERTIES
  2. PRESENTATION, CONSIDERATION AND ADOPTION OF THE REPORT ON THE ADHOC COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE ENERGY SECTOR
  3. THE ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY BILL, 2012

4.         THE PUBLIC ORDER MANAGEMENT BILL, 2012

5.         REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE STATUS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

6.         REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE AFRICAN SPACE RESEARCH PROGRAM (ASRP)

7.         REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE REQUEST BY GOVERNMENT TO BORROW SDR 87.1 MILLION (USD 135.0M) FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (IDA) OF THE WORLD BANK GROUP FOR FINANCING OF THE WATER MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (WMDP)

8.         REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY

9.         PETITION AGAINST THE OFFICIAL RECEIVER OF UGANDA ELECTRICITY BOARD (UEB) AND UEB (IN LIQUIDATION) FOR NON-PAYMENT OF GRATUITY

KAMPALA

21ST NOVEMBER 2012

The bill reached this level of attention back in May, 2011 but time ran out before the bill was debated. There is now plenty of time for this bill to come to the floor prior to the planned December 15 recess.

Uganda’s Speaker of Parliament Wants Anti-Homosexuality Bill Debated Next Week

So says the Monitor.

The Speaker of Parliament has directed the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee to present the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2011 on the floor of Parliament.

The committee chairperson, Mr Stephen Tashobya, passed on Ms Rebecca Kadaga’s directive to committee members yesterday as he summoned them to attend next week’s session in person “to have the Bill concluded”.

In her November 13 letter, the Speaker advised Mr Tashobya to be mindful of what she said was the high demand by the public to address homosexuality.

“I write to reiterate my earlier instruction to your committee to expeditiously handle the review of the report on the Bill. As you are aware, there is high demand by the population to address the escalating problem of promoting and recruiting minors into homosexuality,” the letter reads in part.

“This is therefore to inform you that I shall place the Bill on the Order Paper immediately after conclusion of the Oil Bills,” she wrote. Parliament is concluding consideration of the Petroleum (Exploration, Production and Development) Bill as the House breaks off for Christmas recess on December 15, which suggests that after the Bill is hopefully completed by next Tuesday, MPs can expect to debate and probably pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Mr Tashobya said his committee had “a working document [ready] because we had a lot of responses during the public hearings.” The Bill was presented as a Private Members’ Bill by Ndorwa West MP David Bahati in the 8th Parliament and has since become a subject of international discussion, with a number of Western countries threatening to cut aid to Uganda if it is passed.

The working document is a report left over from the 8th Parliament and makes very few changes in the anti-gay bill.  I wrote about the committee report in May, 2011:

A paper designated as the final report of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee was leaked last Thursday, just ahead of Friday’s final session. I have good reasons to believe that the report did come from the committee although I cannot say for certain that the report would have been presented on the floor of the Parliament had the bill gotten that far. You can read the report, converted to a .pdf, by clicking here.

To help see what a revised bill would have looked like, I compared the original Anti-Homosexuality Bill with the report. This version makes the changes called for in the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee report (Click the link). In this version the sections crossed out were in the original bill and those underlined are the ones suggested by the committee.

Even after the changes, the penalty for private, consensual  same-sex intimacy would still be life in jail and the death penalty would remain since it is the penalty provided for aggravated defilement in Uganda. Clauses 4, 7, 8, 14, 16 & 17 were deleted but a new penalty for participating in the marriage of a same-sex couples. Presumably, this would discourage ministers from performing the ceremonies. Even if the bill had been amended in the manner suggested by the committee, the bill would have defined homosexual behavior in a way that criminalized the most modest forms of intimacy with either life in prison or death for HIV positive individuals.

According to the Monitor report, the Speaker wants to have the second reading of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill after the Petroleum Bills are completed. According to today’s agenda, the oil bills were debated in today’s session (click here to read the order paper for today). The listing of business to come does not list the AHB but according to the Monitor, Kadaga is going to put it on the order paper for sometime next week.

 

Uganda Committee Chair on Anti-Homosexuality Bill: No Comment

Normally a “no comment” response is not very newsworthy, but in this case the reply might signal a more serious effort to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill over the next several days.

Today, I spoke briefly with Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee chair Stephen Tashobya who declined to comment on my questions about his committees report on the anti-gay bill. When asked other questions about the legislation, he said he was unable to comment in any way on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

This is a departure for Mr. Tashobya who told me several months ago that his committee had more important business than the anti-gay measure. Tashobya has always been willing to discuss the progress (or more often the lack of progress) of the bill in his committee. However, I suspect he has been instructed to decline requests for comment.

I then spoke briefly with Mohammed Katamba who is an information officer with Parliament. He indicated that the committee report has not been completed and there was no date set for debate on the bill.

Recall that, in recent weeks, Uganda’s Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has pledged to bring the bill to the floor of Parliament for a vote before Christmas. The bill has new life thanks to Kadaga and passage seems more probable now than ever.

 

 Text of the 2011 committee report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. This report changes some wording but leaves in the death penalty.

Full text of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.

Uganda’s Speaker Promises Passage of Anti-Gay Bill Before the End of the Year

More promises to pass the bill from Rebecca Kadaga.

After three years watching this situation, I am more concerned now than ever that the bill will pass.

If/when it passes, I hope it is immediately challenged in court.

Let’s remember that Museveni has no effective means to veto the bill and did not attempt this last Parliament. He can send bills back to Parliament but if that body is persistent, bills will become law.