Uganda’s bar association has ordered its members to stop bowing before judges and to drop colonial-era honorifics in court, in a sweeping decolonization push announced this week.
The Uganda Law Society (ULS), whose president Isaac Ssemakadde has been rebranding the body as the “Radical New Bar,” issued the directive on Tuesday, July 7, timed to coincide with Saba Saba Day — the East African commemoration of resistance to authoritarian rule.
Under the order, lawyers may no longer bow or perform any other gesture of physical deference toward judicial officers. Titles such as “My Lord,” “Your Lordship,” “My Lady,” “Your Ladyship,” and “Your Worship” are abolished. In their place, advocates must now address judges as “Mr. Justice” or “Madam Justice” for Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges, “Mr. Judge” or “Madam Judge” for High Court judges, and “Mr. Magistrate” or “Madam Magistrate” for magistrates — or simply by surname, prefixed with the appropriate title.
The bar framed the changes as long overdue, arguing that Uganda’s courts have clung to a colonial culture of deference that elevates judicial officers above the citizens they serve. In the accompanying statement, Ssemakadde said lawyers and litigants should “stand upright and speak as free citizens” and stop enacting rituals that humiliate ordinary people while comforting the powerful.
The order also took aim at what the bar described as deeper structural problems in the judiciary: interference from the executive branch, chronic delays in delivering justice, corruption, selective prosecution, and attacks on lawyers. It further accused the military of eroding judicial independence — pointing to unlawful arrests, invasions of courtrooms, detention of civilians, harassment of journalists and lawyers, and the practice of trying civilians in military tribunals.
Beyond courtroom etiquette, the ULS announced a 90-day nationwide consultation to reconsider other trappings of colonial-era court culture, including the continued use of wigs, gowns, and English-language requirements. That review will also examine the judiciary’s client charter, with the goal of rewriting it in plain language and strengthening guarantees around timely service, transparency, and citizens’ access to redress.
The move comes amid an increasingly combative standoff between Ssemakadde and Uganda’s establishment: he currently leads the bar while living in exile following a prior in-absentia conviction for “scandalising the judiciary,” and this same week his group also declared July 7 “Right to Insult Day” and publicly criticized President Museveni over his remarks on the ongoing Kizza Besigye trial.
