A professor at school of law, Makerere University, Oloka Onyango, says that parliament risk to be dragged to court again over refusal to issue press cards to journalists. He made the revelation while at a discussion on the state of press freedom at Parliament during a meeting held at Imperial Royale hotel in Kampala.

This after the Observer newspaper journalists Sulaiman Kakaire and David Tash Lumu won a judicial review case against parliament following their suspension from covering parliament in 2013 over what the Speaker deemed as inaccurate articles.

Prof. Oloka says that parliament may be sued for failure to give press access cards to these two journalists, describing it as contempt of law following, Justice Yasin Nyanzi’s rule that  the speaker through the clerk acted illegally without the input of the disciplinary committee. Oloka says that the right to access to information must be protected and go beyond carrying out investigations instead of basing on the statement from government officials so as the truth is known.

Article 41 in the Constitution of Uganda states that

Every citizen has a right of access to information in the possession of the State or any other organ or agency of the State except where the release of the information is likely to prejudice the security or sovereignty of the State or interfere with the right to the privacy of any other person.

Parliament shall make laws prescribing the classes of information referred to in clause (1) of this article and the procedure for obtaining access to that information.