The Uganda Law Society has written formally to the Nigerian Bar Association in an unprecedented act of continental solidarity, backing the NBA’s condemnation of the incident at the Federal High Court, Abuja, where Justice Mohammed Umar ordered a lawyer to kneel in open court, and declaring that no judge anywhere possesses the lawful power to compel a legal practitioner to kneel.
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The letter, dated March 18, 2026, referenced ULS/163/2026, was written by ULS President Isaac K. Ssemakadde SC and addressed directly to NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe SAN at the NBA House, Plot 1101, Mohammadu Buhari Way, Central Business District, Abuja.
Remarkably, Ssemakadde disclosed that he was writing from exile, having been forced to flee Uganda after being convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for refusing to kneel before and apologise to the Chief Justice — making his intervention not merely a statement of principle but a deeply personal testimony of the consequences lawyers face when they resist judicial overreach on the African continent.
The ULS President revealed that the solidarity letter was prompted by his meeting with NBA Vice President Sabastine U. Anyia earlier in March at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania. At that meeting, both leaders agreed to foster closer ties between their organisations and fellow bar associations across Africa.
Ssemakadde said he had anticipated that their initial contact would be on a lighter note — perhaps exchanges of invitations to each other’s general meetings. Instead, circumstances demanded immediate collaboration in defence of the legal profession’s independence.
“No judge possesses the lawful power to order a legal practitioner to kneel! That directive by Justice Mohammed Umar was not discipline; it was humiliation,” Ssemakadde wrote.
“The NBA has spoken clearly and correctly: such conduct violates every tenet of due process, professional dignity, and the rule of law. We stand with you, shoulder to shoulder.”
Going beyond the immediate Nigerian incident, the ULS President issued a warning about what he described as a systemic problem across English-speaking African judiciaries inherited from the colonial era.
“However, this is not a Nigerian aberration. It is a continental epidemic infecting English-speaking judiciaries of former British colonies,” he wrote.
“From Kampala to Nairobi, Accra to Freetown, we witness the same pattern: arrogant benches, bullying rhetoric, forced genuflection disguised as ‘decorum,’ and the weaponisation of the archaic offence of ‘scandalising the judiciary’ — a charge formally abolished 13 years ago in the United Kingdom that once exported this arcane law to us.”
He noted pointedly that colonial humiliation did not end with the flag — it merely changed costume.
In the most personal section of the letter, Ssemakadde revealed that on Valentine’s Day 2025, he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison in absentia by the High Court of Uganda at Kampala for “scandalising the judiciary.”
His actual offence, he disclosed, was refusing to kneel and apologise as directed by the Chief Justice, after criticising judges and calling for judicial reform.
He revealed that his appeal was unlawfully removed from the Court of Appeal’s hearing schedule by the Deputy Chief Justice, and that since then, an unwritten order had been given to deny calendar dates for any cases involving him or the ULS while he remains its head.
With nearly 17 arrest warrants and investigations targeting him, Ssemakadde said he was forced to close his practice and live outside Uganda as a fugitive. “These actions aim to intimidate, isolate me, and hinder my leadership of the national bar association. Without exile, I would be imprisoned,” he stated.
Ssemakadde was forceful in drawing the connection between his experience and the Abuja incident.
“I therefore have no hesitation in joining Advocate Marshall Abubakar and the NBA to strongly condemn Justice Mohammed Umar’s insidious misconduct,” he wrote.
“When a judge compels an advocate to kneel before the Court, he does not merely bruise one lawyer’s pride; he wounds the entire profession, chills fearless advocacy, and signals to every citizen that justice is dispensed by fear, not reason.”
He warned that across the continent, many lawyers have migrated from litigation to other practice areas after being reduced to tears in court, their careers ruined, and their clients abandoned because fear replaced duty.
“The Bench’s obsession with decorum has turned our courtrooms into crime scenes where the slow strangulation of liberty prevails,” the ULS President declared.
Ssemakadde used the letter to propose six concrete reforms that he called on bar associations across Africa to champion collectively:
First, promoting increased awareness of the 1990 UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers and the 1985 UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, as well as the IBA Standards on the Independence of the Legal Profession and IBA Minimum Standards of Judicial Independence (1982), and enacting reforms to match these standards.
Second, mandating cameras in court to ensure transparency and accountability in proceedings.
Third, mandating judicial ethics training that teaches restraint, not lordship.
Fourth, establishing independent disciplinary commissions with equal Bar and Bench representation, empowered to sanction bullying and humiliation by judicial officers.
Fifth, the statutory abolition of “scandalising the judiciary” offences across the Commonwealth.
Sixth, creating a public register of judicial conduct complaints and ensuring swift appellate review of contempt and recusal proceedings.
The ULS President called for fundamental reform in the culture of African courtrooms.
“We must reject the bygone cult of performative civility — wigs, bows, ritual obeisance — and embrace functional professionalism that recognises robust dissent as an ethical imperative, not an insult. Reform must be radical yet lawful,” he stated.
Ssemakadde concluded with a powerful commitment: “ULS pledges to fight — alongside the NBA and every sister Bar Association on the continent — for an independent Bar that cannot be cowed, an independent and accountable judiciary that serves the people rather than subjugates them, and a fraternity of respectable, resilient, thriving advocates who speak truth without kneeling.”
His final words were equally striking: “The temple of justice must never again demand genuflection. It must demand courage.”
The letter was triggered by events on March 16, 2026, when Justice Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordered Marshall Abubakar — lead defence counsel to politician and online publisher Omoyele Sowore — to come forward and kneel down in open court after the lawyer raised his voice during proceedings in a cyberbullying trial.
The NBA responded the same day through President Osigwe SAN, declaring that no judge has the power to order a lawyer to kneel, that such a directive is not a recognised judicial sanction under Nigerian law, and that while lawyers have a duty to conduct themselves with restraint, the dignity of the court must be preserved not only in outcome but also in process.
The intervention by the Uganda Law Society has now transformed the incident from a domestic Nigerian matter into a continental conversation about the limits of judicial authority, the dignity of legal practitioners, and the urgent need for reform across African legal systems.
Uganda Law Society to NBAThe letter represents one of the rare instances of a foreign bar association formally writing to the NBA in solidarity on a specific judicial incident, underscoring the significance of the issue for the legal profession across Africa.
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