Uganda, May 5 -- Twenty seven years ago last week, on April 25, 1997, the Constitutional Court while delivering its judgment in Constitutional Petition Number 1 of 1996, ruled that the Army High Command did not have the constitutional power to challenge and reverse Maj Gen David Tinyefuza's resignation from the Uganda People's Defence Forces.

Gen Tinyefuza, now Sejusa (RO 00031) had on December 3, 1996, written to the army notifying it of his decision to resign, citing, among others, remarks that he had made before a committee of Parliament which was probing the army's execution of the war against the Joseph Kony-led Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

The minister of State for Defence then, Mr John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, wrote back in a Dece...