Susan Kigula

In 2002 Susan Kigula, a young mother of a one-year-old child, was convicted of the murder of her husband.

Susan and her co-defendant, her housemaid, were both sentenced to death. At the time, Uganda carried the mandatory death penalty for murder. This meant that the judge presiding over her trial had no choice but to give Susan a death sentence after she was convicted – it was automatic. Her lawyers were unable to present mitigating factors: information about Susan’s history, childhood and other circumstances that may have led her to commit the crime.

In 2003, The Death Penalty Project had successfully challenged the use of the mandatory death penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Following the success of our legal arguments in these jurisdictions, we were then invited to work with FHRI Uganda  and Ugandan lawyers (Katende, Ssempebwa & Company) to assist in their preparations for a challenge that asked whether the mandatory death penalty violated bythe constitution of Uganda. Susan Kigula was the lead applicant in this case, which was filed on behalf of every person on death row in Uganda at the time – all 417 people.

In preparation for the constitutional challenge our Co-Executive Directors Saul Lehrfreund and Parvais Jabbar travelled to Kampala to meet the death row inmates involved. They described the experience at the time, of being greeted by a small group of men on death row, who introduced themselves and led them through to a small yard in the middle of the condemned section, where hundreds of men on death row stood. They met every male living on death row at the time, in a space no larger than 10 by 25 yards. For an afternoon, they spoke to each person about their case.

Many thought that they had been brought into the condemned section for one reason and one reason alone: to be hanged. Unsurprisingly, the mood had been grim for many years. But their case had given them hope. They sang, they talked and they laughed. Having worked on similar cases elsewhere in the world, we thought we were fairly hardened, but no-one could have left that prison unmoved.

Landmark judgment

The challenge was successful. In 2005, the Constitutional Court ruled that the mandatory death penalty was in violation of fundamental human rights and gave the government two years to re-sentence everyone on death row.

The Court also found that delaying more than three years in carrying out a death sentence was unconstitutional due to the mental suffering inflicted on the person– a condition known as ‘death row phenomenon’. In 2009 the historic decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court. By the time of the Supreme Court judgment, the numbers of people on death row had considerably grown, meaning the judgment would benefit more than 900 people.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Susan Kigula’s case was sent to the High Court for re-sentencing in 2011. For the first time, the court was able to consider factors such as her good character and the fact that she had no previous convictions. She was re-sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Taking into account the time she had already spent in prison, as well as her good behaviour, Susan was released from prison in 2016.