The uncomfortable question facing EAC integration

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The East African Community treaty extends beyond free movement of goods and people to justice and democracy, lawyer Muthoni Mburu has said.

Speaking during an interview on Spice FM Thursday, September 3, Muthoni argued member states should match rhetoric on regional cooperation with respect for their own constitutions.

Mburu said the push for free movement across the bloc should not overshadow whether individual governments are following the law at home.

"This conversation goes beyond also justice," she noted, adding that developments in one-member state often ripple into others.

She cited the case of Ugandan opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye, who alongside his aide Obeid Lutale faces treason charges in a Kampala High Court, describing his treatment as troubling.

Besigye and Lutale were seized from an apartment in Nairobi on November 16, 2024, less than a day after arriving in Kenya to attend a book launch by People's Liberation Party leader Martha Karua.

The two were driven back to Uganda, where they were detained before being charged.

"You cannot just take someone, put them in a Subaru and take them back to their country, there are laws," Mburu observed.

On January 31, 2025, Uganda's Supreme Court ruled that civilians cannot be tried in military courts, a decision that eventually led to Besigye's case being transferred from the General Court Martial to the ordinary courts.

Besigye's defence had challenged the circumstances of his return to Uganda, Mburu explained, but the application was dismissed.

The matter was then taken to the East African Court of Justice, where a ruling is still pending.

Besigye's lawyer, Erias Lukwago, was separately arrested and charged with misprision of treason, accused of knowing about an alleged treason plot and failing to report it to authorities.

Mburu described the prosecution of Besigye as Museveni using the justice system to settle a political score.

"It is indeed the excessive use of force," she warned, "which we have seen even here at home, excessive use of police force, power and abuse of office to suppress the opinion of the opposition."

She said no substantial evidence had been produced to support the charges.

The lawyer called for clearer separation of powers between EAC member states and their institutions, criticising government interference in judicial processes.