LAW REVISION DEPARTMENT

Introduction

The last revision of the laws of Uganda was carried out as far back as 1964. Since then, the laws of Uganda have only been published as supplements to the Gazette. The passage of thirty-seven years without publication of any revised edition of the laws had resulted in a state of general inaccessibility of the existing law and irrelevance of some of the laws. Thus the need for a revision of the law cannot be overstressed. However, during that period, the several governments of the day established machinery to revise the laws of Uganda. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, no full revised edition ever came out.

The newly created department of law revision (otherwise known as the Law Revision Centre) was set up by the government of Uganda as a department under the Uganda Law reform Commission, with assistance of the European Union (EU) funding.

The aim of setting up the centre was to have in place a permanent and specialised organ to constantly update the laws of Uganda; and to produce and avail to the public annual volumes of the revised laws.

Composition
The Centre is headed by a commissioner law revision and is to be deputised by an assistant commissioner. It currently has a principal legal officer, senior legal officer, legal officer and a research assistant.

The functions of the centre are:

• to manage the database of the revised laws by constantly updating it as new laws are made from time to time;
• to have in place a permanent and specialized organ to constantly update the laws of Uganda.
• to ensure that the laws of Uganda are regularly revised and annual supplements are produced and made available to and accessed by the public.
• to maintain a website for facilitating the accessibility to the law and all related information to the judiciary, government agencies, legal practitioners, law teachers and all other interested users in both hard and soft copies of the law.
• to enable the users to be fully acquainted with the living law at any given time, by maintaining among other things a database of the leading decisions of the superior courts (the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Uganda) on the various provisions of the law.

The up-dating of the law will produce the following results:

• facilitation of the administration of justice, law enforcement, legal education, research and efficient use of the law in business enterprises, locally and internationally; and
• enabling legal cooperation among the partner states of the East African Community and the world at large.(to revisit)

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE LAW REVISION DEPARTMENT

• The Revised Edition of the Principal Laws of Uganda
  The completion of the revised edition of the Principal laws of Uganda 2000 has been one of the major achievements of the Uganda Law Reform Commission in the year 2003.
  With the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department for International Development (DFID), the commission has completed the revision of the principal laws of Uganda covering the period 1964 (when the last revision was done) to December 31st 2000. The revised edition is contained in 13 volumes covering a total of 365 laws. This work involved the omission from the statute books all laws which had been expressly repealed or which had had their full effect, all the repealing laws and amending laws, where such amendments had been incorporated in the laws to which they relate, all words of enactment in any law and preambles as well as dates of commencement, where such omission could, in the opinion of the commissioners, be conveniently made, all statutory instruments made under the authority of the principal laws which had been repealed and not reenacted, all Appropriation Acts, Decrees, and Statutes, all statutory instruments granting remission of taxes and duties and all those that were specified by the Attorney General as inconsistent with any enactment repealing and re-enacting the enactment under which the statutory instrument was made, marginal notes which traced the pre-1964 edition of history of a provision and the laws of Federal States, Administrations and the East African Community as it then was.

The outstanding features of the revised edition are that:

• Decrees, Statutes and Ordinances have been redesignated as Acts;
• chapters have been renumbered;
• formal alterations have been added to names, localities, offices and otherwise as necessary to bring the law into conformity with the circumstances of Uganda;
• cross-references, grammatical and typographical errors have been corrected;
• head-notes have replaced marginal notes; and
• the laws have been made gender sensitive among others.

The revised edition was brought into force on 1st October 2003 by the Attorney General by Statutory Instrument No. 69 of 2003.

• The Inauguration of the Law Revision Centre.
  Another achievement of the department was the inauguration of the law revision centre.
  With assistance from the European Union (EU), a law revision centre was established in the commission. The law revision centre is in the process of revising laws of 2001 onwards. The commission intends to revise the laws through this centre on a continuous basis.

Benefits of law revision

• It is expected that the law will be accessible to government departments, Parliament, the judiciary, lawyers, the police, students, researchers, the business community, investors and the public. This will go a long way in ensuring proper and timely administration of justice. More importantly, it is expected that the constant revision will render the status of Uganda law certain.
  
• It is hoped that an up to date version of the laws will provide certainty in the status of laws, a correct reference to implementers and end users of the law instead of searching in the labyrinth of numerous books referring to Acts, decrees, statutes, ordinances, Statutory instruments or other law in a bid to establish the current position of the law.
  
• The investors and the business community will be able to know the laws of Uganda that affect their activities and plan accordingly. As we enter the new world order, Uganda should be proud to do its business with the rest of the world as a country which has its house in order, including the laws.
  The department has also endeavored to respond to all the queries raised by the revisers.
• Sale of the Revised Edition of the laws of Uganda 2000
  
  The Commission continues to sell the Sixth Revised Edition of the principal laws of Uganda, which are available at shillings 2,000,000/= (Two Million) for a set of thirteen volumes. So far, 365 copies have been sold earning the government of Uganda a total of Uganda shillings 729,760, 000/=.

On-Going Work

• The department is carrying on the following tasks:
• revising all the subsidiary legislation up to December 2000;
• Revising all the principal laws from 2001-2003;
• Preparing annual supplements on the revised edition;
• Sale of the sixth revised edition of the principal laws; and
• Updating the commission website with the revised laws for the benefit of the users

Projections of the Law Revision Department;

The centre, in the near future, hopes to achieve the following;

• Maintain an up-to-date record of revised laws of Uganda and avail them to the public;
• Produce annual supplements of the law at the end of each year;
• Revise the grey book;
• Prepare a compendium of specific laws and statutory instruments;
• Sensitize the public on the revised laws;
• Collect and compile byelaws from the districts for public consumption;
• Collect and compile Court of Appeal and Supreme court decisions ;
• Review all laws at the end of the constitutional review process; and
• Publish the revised edition of the subsidiary legislation up to December 2000.