Recalling our history: a reflection of historical memory in Uganda’s constitutional jurisprudence since 1995

Abstract

The promulgation of Uganda’s Constitution on 8 October 1995 was not merely a juridical milestone, but a deliberate and conscious act of collective remembrance. Emerging from decades of military coups, institutional collapse, and systematic human rights violations, the Constitution was framed as both a rebuke of the past and a covenant with the future. Its Preamble expressly recalls the political and constitutional instability that had afflicted the nation and invokes the sacrifices of those who resisted tyranny and oppression, thereby inscribing historical memory into the very foundation of the constitutional order. This conscious act of remembrance was not incidental; the framers, guided by the Uganda Constitutional Commission, designed the Constitution to ensure that the failures of earlier constitutional experiments, under the 1962, 1966, and 1967 instruments, would not be repeated. Since 1995, Uganda’s courts, most notably the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, have been engaged in the complex and often contested task of giving legal effect to that constitutional memory. This encompasses engagement with the collective experience of past injustices, conflict and constitutional rupture when interpreting constitutional provisions, adjudicating disputes, and shaping the boundaries of state power. The question of whether courts recall, deploy, and at times contest that historical memory, and whether such invocations serve as genuine jurisprudential tools or mere rhetorical legitimation, lies at the heart of this research.