The appellant, Mutasa, was a former Speaker of the then House of Assembly. He had addressed a seminar of senior public servants where he had voiced the opinion that the calibre of MPs was so low as to make Parliament meaningless and that they were uninformed, lacked intelligence and demeaned the institution of Parliament. The respondent, the Speaker of Parliament, ruled that the appellant's words constituted a breach of parliamentary privilege and a select committee of members of Parliament was appointed to investigate the matter. The committee took evidence from witnesses in the absence of Mutasa. He was questioned but was not allowed legal representation and the select committee also refused his request to recall, for further examination, witnesses who had testified. As a result of the committee's recommendations, Mutasa was found guilty of contempt of Parliament and severely reprimanded by the Speaker. Mutasa sought a judicial review of the proceedings of the select committee arguing that the finding of contempt should be quashed on the grounds that the committee's procedure had violated his right to a fair hearing (contrary to section 18(2) of the Constitution) and that his utterances outside Parliament were protected by his constitutional right to freedom of expression. The Speaker then issued a certificate under section 6(1) of the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act which the presiding judge deemed to be conclusive of the matter and accordingly stayed the proceedings. Mutasa appealed to the Supreme Court.

There is now a considerable amount of legal and other related materials available on the internet. The following are a few of the web sites that may be of interest to readers. The list will be updated from time to time.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) was established by the Constitution of Uganda, 1995, and brought into operation by the Judicial Service Act, 1997. This is particularly notable because the role of the Commission is not only to oversee the appointment, discipline and removal of judicial officers but also to provide a link between the judiciary and the public and to provide training for judges. Its major features are as follows.

The establishment of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) was noted in [1996] J.A.L. 123. CMAG submitted a report covering three countries, i.e. The Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in October, 1997. Paragraphs 12–17 of the Edinburgh Communiqué set out the reponse of Commonwealth Heads of Government to the Report:

The Children Statute, 1996, which came into force in August, 1997, makes important changes to die care and treatment of children, that is, persons below the age of 18 years. Section 4 emphasizes the principle mat the child's welfare shall be the paramount consideration and that in addition to all the rights contained in the Statute, a child enjoys all the rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the OAU Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child “with appropriate modifications to suit the circumstances of Uganda”.

Law No. 97/9 of 10 January, 1997, provides severe punishment for the use of torture by government officials. If the torture results in unintentional death, the punishment is imprisonment for life; if it causes illness or incapacity to work for a period above 30 days, the punishment is 10–20 years imprisonment; if it causes illness or incapacity to work for a period below 30 days, it is 2–5 years imprisonment and a fine of 50,000F CFA to 200,000F CFA.

Representatives of Australia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Yemen meeting in Mauritius in March, 1997, adopted this Charter whose primary aim is the “sustained growth and balanced development of the region and of the Member States”. The main provisions of the Charter are set out below:

The applicants were respectively the managing director and editor of the Post newspaper. They published a series of articles in the newspaper in which they criticized the Speaker and the Vice-President for critical comments made about judges of the Supreme Court. Without any form of trial, they were adjudged guilty of gross contempt of the National Assembly and of a breach of parliamentary privilege by the Standing Orders Committee and committed to prison for an indefinite period. They applied to the High Court for a writ of habeas corpus.

Many African states continue to face problems of money laundering. In South Africa, the Law Commission undertook a major project (Project 104) on the issue and has now published its report entitled Money Laundering and Related Matters. It makes the following recommendations:

The issue raised in this case was whether a video game fell within the meaning of “cinematograph film” as defined by the Copyright Act 98 of 1978. The Act itself had been amended in 1992 with the words “but shall not include a computer programme” being inserted into the definition of “cinematograph film”.

Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Congo (Dem Rep), Cote d'lvoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Tunisia and the United Republic of Tanzania.

In this case the Namibian Supreme Court made a declaratory order to provide guidance in prosecutions in which an accused might seek to obtain the contents of police dockets. Amongst other things, it stated that in prosecutions before the High Court, an accused (or legal representative) is ordinarily entitled to the information contained in the police docket relating to the case prepared by the prosecution against him/her, including all witness statements. The state is entitled to withhold any information contained in the docket if it satisfied the court on a balance of probabilities that it had reasonable grounds for believing that the disclosure of such information might reasonably impede the ends of justice or otherwise be against the public interest.

In June, 1996, the SADC Parliamentary Forum was officially launched with the aim of providing a democratic and representative forum for the various national parliaments in the region. The Constitution of the Forum is as follows

The applicant was seeking a declaration that the respondent was the father of her minor child. While the matter was still pending, she sought an order compelling the respondent to submit himself to a blood test to determine whether he could be excluded as the possible father. She submitted that the court's inherent jurisdiction to regulate its own procedure extended to the compulsory ordering of a blood test. The respondent contended that the court lacked the statutory power to make such an order since the Children's Status Act, 1987, section I merely created a presumption of paternity where it was proved that sexual intercourse with the mother had occurred at any time when the child could have been conceived, while section 2 provided that where a party failed to submit to a blood test in paternity proceedings it would be presumed that such refusal was aimed at concealing the truth. He also contended that if such power existed, it contravened sections 11 and 13 of the 1993 Constitution.

The respondent minister had designated for compulsory acquisition land owned by the appellants. Land designated under section 12 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1992, could not be sold, disposed of or leased without the prior written consent of the respondent, but where that consent was refused, the owner could call upon the acquiring authority to acquire the land forthwith, compensation being payable in such circumstances. The appellants argued that the act of designation was unconstitutional as it amounted to the compulsory acquisition of property without compensation.

In November, 1996, the Fifth Meeting of the Commonwealth Ministers Responsible for Women's Affairs recommended that member countries be encouraged to achieve a target of not less than 30 per cent of women in decision-making in the political, public and private sectors by the year 2005. This is an ambitious target for, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the proportion of women involved in politics world-wide declined from 12.1 per cent in 1985 to 11 per cent in 1995. The situation throughout Africa is especially bleak for, as the following table indicates, with the notable exceptions of Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Eritrea and Uganda, most African countries fall well below the world average.