On Wednesday, August 21, 2019, the Ugandan Parliament passed a law that abolishes the mandatory death penalty for a number of crimes.
It is now up to the President of the Republic, Yoweri Museveni, to approve this law, which will henceforth reserve the death penalty for the most serious crimes and the appreciation, in the discretion of the judge.
The will of the Ugandan deputies is to achieve the definitive abolition of the death penalty. Indeed, over the past 20 years, 133 inmates have been sentenced to death but no one has been executed.
The Court considers that the application of the death penalty is not a necessity in case of murder and that anyone sentenced to death, if it is not executed the first 3 years, must just serve a sentence from prison to life.
This decision pleased the Prison Service, which found that the State must above all find strategies to accompany prisoners after their release in order to facilitate their social reintegration.
