In the landmark case of CEHURD & 2 Ors v Executive Director, Mulago National Referral Hospital & Attorney General (2020), Justice Lydia Mugambe did what no Ugandan judge before her had done: She judicially breathed life into the right to health, a right not explicitly entrenched in Uganda’s Constitution but implied within its moral architecture and grounded in Uganda’s National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy (NODPSP).
For decades, Ugandan courts—when confronted with social and economic rights—tiptoed or retreated. They leaned heavily on textual positivism, arguing that since the 1995 Constitution only enshrines civil and political rights explicitly, claims based on socio-economic rights (like health care) were non-justiciable.
Many judges clung to conservative readings of precedents such as Zachary Olum & Another v Attorney General, which treated the NODPSP as non-enforceable.
Even where Egonda-Ntende J in Tinyefuza v Attorney General called the NODPSP “important interpretative aids,” few judges had the courage to act on that interpretive opening.
Then came Justice Mugambe—with a judicial pen and a moral compass.
She ruled that Mulago Hospital’s failure to account for a newborn baby, and denial of the parents’ opportunity to bury their child, constituted not only medical negligence, but a violation of the right to health, freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, and the right to dignity. Her reasoning was grounded in:
Objectives XX and XIV(b) of the NODPSP, Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and Articles 24 and 44 of Uganda’s Constitution.
What others had dismissed as “aspirational clauses,” she transformed into actionable obligations. She did not err on the side of caution—she erred on the side of humanity.
Crucially, Justice Mugambe’s approach resonated with the evolving constitutional jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court in Petition 16 of 2011 (CEHURD v Attorney General), which had earlier affirmed the justiciability of socio-economic rights by interpreting the Constitution as a living document anchored in dignity, equality, and access to justice.
Though her High Court ruling came nearly a decade later, it echoed the spirit of Petition 16 of 2011 and has since been cited with approval in legal, academic, and policy circles for actualizing that jurisprudential vision.
In this way, Justice Mugambe did not act in isolation—she carried forward and constitutionalised a moral momentum that had begun stirring quietly in Uganda’s legal conscience. But her courage was not limited to healthcare jurisprudence.
In another precedent-setting judgment, Kakumba & Another v Attorney General, she ruled that prisoners retain the right to vote, pushing back against prevailing narratives that criminality negates citizenship. Despite being appealed, her judgment marked a historic advancement in inclusive constitutionalism, arguing that democracy should not end at the prison gate.
The Constitutional Court later cited her reasoning with approval, acknowledging that disenfranchisement without clear constitutional or legislative basis is both unjust and unlawful.
But Why Then is the World Silent When She Bleeds?
Let history not be written in haste, nor justice be judged by the clamor of shadows. When the name Justice Lydia Mugambe is spoken, it ought to resound not with whispers of doubt, but with the thunder of legacy.
Today, she stands clouded by trumped-up or technically construed charges in the UK, stemming from her efforts to offer assistance to a fellow Ugandan. This situation has been legally weaponised through interpretive lacunas—a familiar tactic in retaliatory lawfare aimed at silencing moral courage.
History overflows with examples of those punished not for their crimes, but for their compassionate convictions. Socrates drank poison. Mandela served 27 years. Mugambe faces a colder exile—not of prison, but of silence and legal isolation.
A Call to Remember and Reframe
To forget the humanity of Justice Mugambe in this moment is to betray the very jurisprudence she gifted us. Hers was not a career of self-promotion—it was one of constitutional stewardship. As Chief Justice Willy Mutunga once said, “the Constitution is not a monument to past power but a living tool for justice.”
Let the world remember:
The measure of a judge is not in technical perfection, but in moral principle.
Justice is not merely the cold application of rules—it is the warm pursuit of what is right, even when the rules fall silent.
Let us invoke Ubuntu—“I am because we are.” If Justice Mugambe’s only “error” was helping another with a compassionate hand, does that not elevate her above those who serve law without soul?
Final Benediction for a Jurist Betrayed
She may have stumbled, But she never stopped lifting others.
She may be accused, But her legacy is acquitted.
She may face exile, But she has already been enthroned—in the conscience of a nation she dared to awaken.
Let the record speak.
Let posterity remember.
Let Justice Mugambe rise again—not from favour, but from faith.
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