Lawyers and human rights activists have urged the government and the Electoral Commission (EC) to speed up processes that would allow prisoners to participate in national elections, warning that continued exclusion of inmates violates their constitutional rights.
The appeal was made during a recent meeting in Gulu City, where participants expressed frustration that, despite a 2020 High Court ruling granting inmates the right to vote, prisoners will again be locked out of the 2026 general elections.
Justice Lydia Mugambe directed the Electoral Commission (EC) to make necessary arrangements for prisoners and Ugandans in the diaspora to vote, an order activists say remains unimplemented four years later.
Joel Oyet, a lawyer with Odongo and Company Advocates, said inmates remain citizens with full political rights, and denying them the opportunity to vote strips them of their voice in deciding the country’s leadership.
“They should also have a pinch of the candidates coming to campaign for them, so that they listen. Some of them will come out of prison, and some will be declared not guilty. But if they have not had a say in who is leading them as a Member of Parliament or President, then we are doing away with their interests.”
He added that Article 61 of the Constitution gives the Electoral Commission the mandate to compile and maintain the voters’ register, and the continued failure to register inmates is a violation of that constitutional duty.
Francis Odongyoo, the Executive Director of Human Rights Focus (HURIFO), questioned why the Electoral Commission has made no effort to register inmates, arguing that imprisonment does not take away political rights.
“I don’t think there was anything that should have prevented the Electoral Commission from mobilising or registering people in places where they are. Most cases take years before they are heard. So why should these people be denied the right to vote when they are still being tried?” Odongyoo questioned.
He noted that both convicted and remanded inmates remain constitutionally recognized citizens and, therefore, should not be excluded from electoral processes.
However, the Uganda Prisons Service says it has no authority to register inmates without direction from the Electoral Commission.
Frank Baine, the Prisons spokesperson, said no EC officials have ever visited prisons to register inmates for the 2026 polls.
“For us, we have never seen anybody coming to register prisoners, so they cannot vote when they are not registered. We are waiting for the Electoral Commission, and nobody has registered them up to now.” Baine told Uganda Radio Network in an interview on Friday.
The Electoral Commission, however, maintains that it cannot include prisoners in the 2026 elections without Parliament first passing enabling legislation.
EC spokesperson Paul Bukenya said the Commission has not made arrangements for inmates’ participation because the required legal framework is still lacking.
“Much as Article 59 states that all Ugandan citizens aged 18 and above have the right to vote, there must be a specific law providing for how inmates will exercise this right,” Bukenya noted.
Uganda currently has about 78,000 inmates across 254 prisons, equivalent to 0.17% of the national population. The majority of them are adults eligible to vote under the Constitution.
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