Here’s what a one Agodo Shabella Patience, a lawyer by profession, founder and Executive Director at Green Teso Foundation shared on facebook in relation to Desire Mirembe’s murder and the ongoing court proceedings. Read it in full below.
“From a legal stand point.
All that gibberish going around about Mathew having confessed etc is all “hearsay” which according to evidence law is not admissible in court.
And just to prove that all that rumor going around is just rumor, Mathew’s case is being “held in Camera” which means that court is intentionally excluding the public from attending the hearing because for one, the magistrate has the discretion to exclude the public from attending the proceedings if it has reason to believe it will be prejudicial to the accused’s case.
Where the public is allowed to attend court proceedings, such is held to be in open court which isn’t the case for Mathew’s case.
Therefore until such time that the proceedings are completed “in camera” no one can reasonably know what was going on in court and this rebuts the truth of Mathew’s alleged guilt in the “hearsay” going around.
As regards Mathew’s innocence, the Constitution of Uganda, which is Uganda’s supreme law, presumes Mathew to be innocent until proven guilty or until he pleads guilty under Article 28 (3)(a). So as per now, Mathew is presumed innocent.
And based on that presumption, the burden of proving his guilt falls on the prosecution. The standard of proving that guilt for the prosecution is “beyond all reasonable doubt”. So should the prosecution’s case create any doubt as to Mathew’s guilt, Mathew will be acquitted. Which simply means the prosecution will have failed to prove it’s case.
Mathew at this point need not say anything. Should he raise a defence, the burden would still fall on the prosecution to disprove such defence except in a few circumstances say where the defence is insanity. Even then, Mathew’s standard of proof is merely “Balance of probability”.
My point is at this point in the proceedings, all those shouting around for justice to be done against Mathew are terribly misinformed citizens exposing their very high levels of ignorance.
Let us respect the due process of Justice.
Also whatever the outcome of the case, let both parties be informed that they have a constitutional right of appeal if they are not satisfied with whatever judgement is given.”
BigEyeUg Staff
