Africa-Press – Uganda. Human rights activists and lawyers have poked holes in the new directives issued by President Museveni to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The directives, which were issued on Friday last week, stipulate that one must present a Covid-19 vaccination certificate in order to access public meetings and public transport, among others.
In an interview with the Monitor yesterday, Dr Livingstone Sewanyana, the executive director of Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), said the President did not explain how the directives will be implemented and when the implementation will start.
“It sounded like it was an immediate demand yet we need to know where the vaccination takes place. At the moment, we don’t even know where the vaccination centres are,” Mr Sewanyana said.
Mr Bernard Oundo, the president of Uganda Law Society, said the directives would have to be backed by the law.
“Once backed by law, the challenges would be whether they meet constitutionality tests in so far as they infringe on the rights to privacy, freedom of movement and other rights,”Mr Oundo said in a telephone interview last evening.
He added: “In as far as the presidential directive provides the alternative of testing, I believe that they would meet the constitutional tests of limiting the other rights enjoyed under the Constitution.”
He said the constitutional test in all these cases would be whether the measures are legitimate, necessary and are proportionate to achieve the objective of reducing the Covid-19 infection.
Mr Marlon Agaba, the head of programmes at Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, said: “It may breed corruption here and there. Certificates can be forged and we have seen that before, which means that some people are going to be making some money from people out of forged certificates.”
He added: “People who are not vaccinated will be paying some money to be allowed in public places.”
Ms Sarah Bireete, the executive director of the Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG), said the public has the right to choose to get vaccinated or not.
“As far as it is concerned with Covid-19, you can only advise people to get vaccinated. We do not have any rate of infection to warrant for public regulation and limiting access of citizens because of Covid,” Ms Bireete said.
Vaccination
In his address, the President directed the Health ministry to relaunch the vaccination exercise and ensure more people are vaccinated.
The President said the vaccination coverage is below the country’s target of 28.5 million people.
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