Discrimination on the Ground of Age in Uganda: Analysing Madrama Izama v. Attorney General (Constitutional Appeal No.01 of 2016) [2019] UGSC 1 (14 February 2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-664
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Opposite Conclusion ◽  
Majority Judgment

Article 21(2) of the Ugandan constitution provides that ‘a person shall not be discriminated against on the ground of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, birth, creed or religion, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability’. Article 21(3) defines discrimination to mean ‘to give different treatment to different persons attributable only or mainly to their respective descriptions by sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, birth, creed or religion, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability’. Age is not one of the grounds mentioned in Article 21 against which a person may not be discriminated against. In Madrama Izama v. Attorney General the Ugandan Supreme Court dealt with the issue of whether, notwithstanding the fact that age is not mentioned under Article 21, a person could argue that he has a right not to be discriminated against on the basis of age. The majority judgment answered that question in the negative whereas the minority judgments came to the opposite conclusion. In this article, the author highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the majority and minority judgments.

Adverse Effects Discrimination

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-50
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Needs Assessment ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Workforce Training ◽  
Adverse Impact ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Protected Group ◽  
Judicial Instruction

Legal writers call it “adverse effects discrimination” and “adverse discrimination effect,” which describes a situation in which a policy that seems on its face to treat everyone equally actually has an adverse impact on a protected group. Applied to gender inequality, ageism, and differential provisions for workforce training, there are plenty of cases to support the principle. One of the most notable Supreme Court cases in Canadian legal history is Gosselin v. Quebec (Attorney General). This chapter is an overview of some of the opinions published about Gosselin that exposes the Charter as negative law and constitutes part of a needs assessment for judicial instruction about deciding cases of equity.

The UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill—A Reference by the Attorney General and the Advocate General for Scotland [2018] UKSC 64, Supreme Court

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Webb
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Public Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Advocate General ◽  
Scottish Parliament ◽  
The Uk

Essential Cases: Public Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in The UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill—A Reference by the Attorney General and the Advocate General for Scotland [2018] UKSC 64, Supreme Court. This case is concerned with the competencies of the Scottish Parliament, and the nature of devolution in the UK more generally. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Thomas Webb.

Impeachment and Removal from Office

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Danny M. Adkison ◽  
Lisa McNair Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Grand Jury ◽  
State Law ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
The Supreme Court

This chapter discusses Article VIII of the Oklahoma constitution, which concerns impeachment and removal from office. Section 1 states that “the Governor and other elective state officers, including the Justices of the Supreme Court, shall be liable and subject to impeachment for wilful neglect of duty, corruption in office, habitual drunkenness, incompetency, or any offense involving moral turpitude committed while in office.” Moreover, “all elected state officers, including Justices of the Supreme Court and Judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals, shall be automatically suspended from office upon their being declared guilty of a felony by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Two other methods for removing elected officials not mentioned in Section 1 are specified in state law pursuant to Section 2. The first provides for a grand jury to accuse an official and present its findings to a district judge. The second allows the governor to instruct the attorney general to investigate an official and, if official misconduct is found, to institute proceedings in court. Section 3 designates the chief justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court as the presiding officer in an impeachment trial. Lastly, Section 4 requires senators to take an oath and specifies a two-thirds vote of those present in order to convict.

Revise Your Syllabi: Israeli Supreme Court Upholds Authorization for Torture and Ill-Treatment

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smadar Ben-Natan
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
General Rules ◽  
Israeli Supreme Court ◽  
And Function ◽  
Meaning And Function ◽  
Specific Construction

This paper reviews the recent decision of the Israeli Supreme Court in the case of Tbeish v Attorney General, in light of the 1999 landmark Public Committee against Torture in Israel (pcati) case, which prohibited torture and ill-treatment of detainees, but acknowledged necessity as a possible criminal defence for interrogators. Tbeish is not framed as a break from the past, or even as a change in the law, but I argue that it provides a new authorization for torture and ill-treatment. The Court upheld internal guidelines of the Israeli Security Agency (isa) that establish a ‘necessity procedure’ for the application of ‘special interrogation means’. The Court’s specific construction of the guidelines circumvents the unambiguous prohibition in pcati on general rules setting criteria for using special interrogation means, by turning the process into a supposedly ad hoc decision on each individual case without preexisting rules. Nevertheless, this paper argues, the decision approves a system of prior authorization for the use of violent means of interrogations. Creating a framework for an organizational decision, the guidelines relieve interrogators of personal responsibility for potentially unlawful acts by shifting the meaning and function of necessity from a criminal defence to a principle of governmental action. As such, they provide bureaucratic authorization and justification for acts which violate the prohibition against torture.

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