Africa-Press – Uganda. Almost two weeks after she died, the burial programme for former Supreme Court judge Stella Arach-Amoko has finally been confirmed with the Judiciary announcing July 1 as the day to inter her remains.
The announcement brings an end to a dispute – eventually resolved by a court’s adjudication — between her widow, Ambassador James Idule-Amoko’s family, and his in-laws led by the judge’s children from her first marriage.
A day after her death on June 17, ex-justice Arach-Amoko’s family insisted they would respect her reported death-bed instructions to be buried in Nebbi, West Nile sub-region. At the same time, her husband and his relatives felt that she ought to be laid to rest at her matrimonial home hundreds of miles away in Adjumani District in line with Madi culture.
On Thursday, judiciary spokesman Jameson Karemani said that Justice Arach-Amoko will be buried at her ancestral home in Juba Village, Jukiya Hill Ward, Nebbi Municipality.
“With the court’s pronouncement, the national organising committee has kicked off the programme of the final send-off. Most of the activities have been held in Kampala,” Karemani told a press briefing.
According to Karemani, the body, which has been lying at A-Plus funeral home in Kampala, will be transported to Nebbi early Friday morning.
A special joint district council sitting at Nebbi Council Hall is scheduled for 2pm while an overnight vigil at the ancestral home will commence at 6pm.
A requiem mass will be held at Caritas Grounds at 10am on Saturday before burial on the same day.
Karemani told journalists that the judiciary does not anticipate any problems in Nebbi since both sides of the family are represented on the national organising committee- and agreed to the programme.
Government had planned to lay Lady Justice Arach-Amoko to rest in Adjumani last Friday in an official burial.
But the Judiciary shelved this plan after the row over the burial site broke out between the deceased judge’s children and their stepfather.
The three children, their maternal uncle and auntie maintained that their late mother and sister willed that she be buried next to her late father on Jukiya Hill, and not in Adjumani.
Annet Yossa, Emmanuel Komakech, Jackie Amony and the deceased’s brother Godfrey Richo as well as sister Christine Onyok petitioned court over the dispute.
High Court’s Family Court Division judge Keturah Katunguka June 26 drew curtains over the unfolding family feud, ruling that burial shall take place in accordance with Lady Justice Arach-Amoko’s wishes.
“The wishes of the late Lady Justice Stella Arach-Amoko made known to the applicants and the family, including the first respondent (Ambassador Idule-Amoko) in a meeting of June 18, held at Kinawataka Mbuya [in] Kampala, informed the programme that showed that the deceased would be buried at Jukiya Hill Ward in Nebbi District,” Justice Katunguka ruled.
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