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Fatou Bensouda Messed Up The ICC, Julia Sebutinde Bungled The Police Probe, while Catherine Bamugemerire's Land Probe Is Getting Hot; Do Women Crack Under The weight of Big Assignments?

Fatou Bensouda Messed Up The ICC, Julia Sebutinde Bungled The  Police Probe, while Catherine Bamugemerire's Land Probe Is Getting Hot; Do Women Crack Under The weight of Big Assignments?

Lady Justice Catherine Bamugemerire

Does Anyone of you remember president Yaya Jammeh of The Gambia?

Am talking about the one who claimed to have discovered the cure for aids?

The Gambian president might have been very unpopular with many African democrats but his legacy produced (at least) one good thing; the current chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) Fatou Bensouda who had worked in Yaya Jammeh’s judicial system.

Bensouda replaced Moren Ocampo who had made the ICC a more feared institution.

When the Gambian lady took over at the ICC, we all jubilated because our African woman had eaten big!

But our jubilation soon dried up as the ICC started losing its relevance as she bungled one case after another through her miscalculated decisions.

According to an Associated Press report on 6 November 2015, Bensouda was advised that war crimes may have been committed on a ship in 2010, where eight unarmed Turks were killed and several other activists wounded by Israeli commandos, but she ruled the case was not serious enough to merit an International Criminal Court probe!.

Letting Israel off the hook was one fatal mistake that only served to make the ICC a toothless institution.

She then made another unwarranted mistake of seeking charges for human rights abuses committed during the war in Afghanistan such as alleged rapes and tortures by the American troops.

Even lay man like me knows that America is not a signatory of the Rome statute and can therefore the US troops cannot be held accountable for war crimes in any part of the world.

In fact Bensouda’s reckless charges were hastily rebutted by ambassador john Bolton who reminded her that the ICC Court had no jurisdiction over the USA, which did not ratify the Rome treaty.

She was so naïve to not to have realized that the United States of America being on UN permanent security council would veto any UN sanction if it was brought before the UN as a result of any ICC action.

Fatou Bensouda

 The United States of America has an established and functioning judicial branch to handle war crimes complaints against its Military personnel.

After these miscalculations, Fatou Bensouda was soon faced with another uprising from a section of African leaders who questioned the integrity, intentions and deliberate selective justice by the ICC.
The African leaders alleged that the ICC was onLy targeting African leaders and not war criminals allover the world

As a result of the protestations led mostly by our own president Museveni, Fatou Bensouda failed to prosecute the case of post election violence allegedly orchestrated by Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy Ruto.

Instead she consequently dropped the charges against the Kenyan president! Phew!

The ICC also failed to sanction the arrest and eventual prosecution of Sudan president Omar El Bashir who continued to defy the travel ban that had been imposed on him.

With all this at play, the ICC has since degenerated into nothing more than a barking dog.

In Comes Lady Justice Julia Sebutinde

This brings us to another case of lady justice Julia Sebutinde who was given the powers to probe into the criminal activities within the Uganda police.

 Sebutinde was praised by a large section of Ugandans including president Museveni who poured lavish praises on her because of the way she unearthed some strange happenings in the police force.

we all admired her for being a brave woman. In fact at one time i thought she deserved to be the next chief justice of Uganda. 

But despite of her shining star, some legal minds intimated that her committee was more of a torture chamber for whoever was summoned to face her.

 She was largely accused of orchestrating judicial hooliganism (she used to shout at the victims) and using a lot of emotions in execution of her duties.

She later wrote a report about the police, basing on her findings, but it’s safe to say that the report was never implemented, --given the fact that the Uganda police force even got worse than ever.

There are rumors that government failed to implement the Sebutinde report because of the way she had conducted herself but not necessarily because it lacked merit.

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But that aside, the point am trying to make here is that there could be something wrong with the way ladies handle big offices. 

 A lot of hullaballoo and dust has been raised whenever ladies are given bigger assignements.
Jennifer Musisi, Hon parcis Namuganza, Hon  Aida Nantaba, Hon Rebecca Kadaga are some of the case studies which I will not dwell on , but are indicative of the fact that something is not right with our ladies when appointed to handle big assignments.

Lady Justice Catherine Bamugemerire

Take the case of lady justice Catherine Bamugerire who was given the odious task of probing the irregularities taking place in the lands sector.

She has been grilling her victims the same way one would squeeze juice from a sugar cane!

Her recent attitude towards Hon Betty Amongi, has generated a lot of dust in the intellectual circles accusing her of being very agressive.

Although some of us think it’s the best way to deal with the criminality taking place in the lands sector, others think that she has instead abused the rules of judicial procedure.

Others have accused her of exuding judicial hooliganism- the same accusations leveled at Julia.  

They claim that in any trial, the accused needs to be given the benefit of doubt in conformity with the principals of a fair trial.

if its true that she has indeed violated some principals of a fair trial, can we attribute this anomaly to her gender? would a man conduct himself differently?

Alternatively am also tempted to believe that , maybe , just maybe, these ladies also get excited and use emotions that discredit their good intentions while executing their mandate?

Otherwise, why should the ICC face integrity challenges during the tenure of a lady Fatou Bensouda and not at the time of Moreno Ocampo?
oh,the feminists are going to accuse me of being a male chauvinist.
But the truth is that a huge percentage of women seem to crack under th weight of pressure when given big undertakings. 
We hope Catherine Bamugemerire will overcome this syndrome and execute her mandate as expected.

  

Ends

The Author Fred Daka Kamwada Is A Journalist And A Ugandan Blogger. Talk to him at ; Kamwadafred@gmail.com