Hijacked Justice. Xxxxxxx’s proceedings point to a dark side to complementarity, particularly when domestic accountability is pursued by a state eager to be seen as making good on the investments of donor bodies and “compliant” with international norms. As a member of Xxxxxxx’s legal defense team explained, “There is so much international pressure for [Uganda] to deal with the LRA.”689 In response to such pressure, many of the same “international standards” to which domestic systems must ostensibly comply have been violated: Xxxxxxx has now spent five years in pre-trial detention, in defiance of repeated orders by Uganda’s own courts that he be released. Such defiance of the domestic judiciary is not new in Uganda,690 but it is noteworthy that many of the same international NGOs that are otherwise champions of due process have said so little about the Kwoyelo trial or his treatment.691 Complementarity’s disciplinary dimensions can also be seen in the reaction of JLOS to the Constitutional Court’s decision, when it (incorrectly) insisted that the “principle would require those responsible for serious human rights violations to be excluded from 685 See Oola, “In the Shadow of Kwoyelo’s Trial.” 686 The Republic of Uganda in the Supreme Court of Uganda at Kampala, Constitutional Appeal No. 1 of 2012, Uganda x. Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, 8 April 2015, 41-42. 687 Ibid. Notably, the judgment’s lead opinion also suggests a sequential approach to justice that would pursue accountability first before resorting to other “alternative” measures. See Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx, “Supreme Court of Uganda Rules on the Application of the Amnesty Act” (16 April 2015), at xxxx://xxx.xxxxxxxxx.xxx/2015/04/supreme-court-of-uganda-rules-on-the-application-of-the-amnesty- act/. 688 Xxxx Xxxxxx, “Rights body to assist Xxxxxxx,” Daily Monitor (2 January 2013). 689 Xxxxxx Xxxxxx, “Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx’s Troubling Trial,” The New Yorker (21 July 2012). 690 See, e.g., Xxxx Xxxxx, Xxxxxxxx’x Uganda, 86-91; Kasaija Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx, “The ICC’s Possible Deferral of the LRA Case to Uganda,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 6 (2008), 808. Xxxx Xxxxx recounts a notorious scene from November 2005, when opposition leader Xxxxx Xxxxxxx was arrested (on charges of treason and rape) and brought to the High Court to be released on bail, only be to surrounded by members of the Black Mamba Squad, a paramilitary unit, in the courtroom and arrested extralegally; Apuuli notes similar acts were repeated in March 2007. 691 Rather than drawin...
