{"id":73559,"date":"2024-05-17T17:09:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T17:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff"},"modified":"2024-05-17T17:54:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T17:54:36","slug":"police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff","title":{"rendered":"Police officer fined Shs40m for illegal detention of court staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. <\/strong><\/span><b>In a decisive move against abuse of authority, the court has slapped a Shs40 million compensatory fine against a police officer at Namutumba Police Station.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The ruling stems from a decision by Ms Stella Nankunda to detain two court process servers, Michael Kaluusi and Richard Mwesigwa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI take note of the fact that the respondent (officer Nankunda) acted out with gross impunity towards the applicants (Mr Kaluusi and Mr Mwesigwa), this kind of excesses by the people in authority towards citizens to whom they are accountable, should be condemned at all costs,\u201d ruled presiding Chief Magistrate Daniel Epobu Kiboko of Iganga Court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the instant case, I find that the confinement of the applicants for five hours without justification violated their rights to personal liberty. For those reasons above, I award the applicants Shs40m as compensation,\u201d he ruled.<\/p>\n<p>The court also ordered Ms Nankunda, who is also the officer-in-charge of the Criminal Investigations Department at Namutumba Police Station, to issue a written apology to the duo within 30 days of the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Despite calls for her dismissal, the court deemed the hefty fine as sufficient.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCounsel invited the court to invoke its inherent powers according to Section 98 of the Civil Procedure Act to order for the dismissal of the respondent from the Uganda Police Force. I find the award of Shs40m sufficient to reform the respondent within the Force,\u201d the magistrate said.<\/p>\n<p>Court documents show that the duo on December 14, 2023, had gone to report a case of assault against Logose Sulaina at Namutumba Police Station but instead, they were detained on the orders of officer Nankunda for five hours without any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>This was after Logose assaulted the duo who had gone to serve her court documents since she was a defendant in a separate civil case.<\/p>\n<p>The court process servers were not informed of the reasons for their confinement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe respondent\u2019s act of confining the applicants yet they were practising their profession was uncalled for. The applicants did identify themselves to the respondent as court process servers but all this fell on deaf ears of the respondent,\u201d the magistrate held.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if the respondent had doubts over the identity of the applicants, she would have verified the same through various electronic means from the entity that the applicants stated were their employers, other than confining them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>About seven years ago, the Constitutional Court in a landmark judgment, held that errant police officers can and should be sued for inflicting torture on people in their personal capacities even when on official duty.<\/p>\n<p>This position of the court differed from the earlier one that protected government officials who committed torture crimes and would go scot-free since it would be the Attorney General to be sued and pay the court awards, if any.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\">Uganda<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. In a decisive move against abuse of authority, the court has slapped a Shs40 million compensatory fine against a police officer at Namutumba Police Station. The ruling stems from a decision by Ms Stella Nankunda to detain two court process servers, Michael Kaluusi and Richard Mwesigwa. \u201cI take note of the fact [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":73558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-73559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Police officer fined Shs40m for illegal detention of court staff - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a decisive move against abuse of authority, the court has slapped a Shs40 million compensatory fine against a poli ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Police officer fined Shs40m for illegal detention of court staff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a decisive move against abuse of authority, the court has slapped a Shs40 million compensatory fine against a poli ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-17T17:09:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-17T17:54:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2024\/05\/sm_1715955720.201228.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"929\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"431\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Police officer fined Shs40m for illegal detention of court staff\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-05-17T17:09:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-05-17T17:54:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\"},\"wordCount\":490,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2024\/05\/sm_1715955720.201228.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/police-officer-fined-shs40m-for-illegal-detention-of-court-staff\",\"name\":\"Police officer fined Shs40m for illegal detention of court staff - 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