(2018) 2 African Human Rights Yearbook 2.2 93 The finer distinctions implicated by the term ‘reference’ It is also important, at the outset, to point out that ‘reference’ by courts to AU law, or to other legal orders, can take several forms, with varying implications. There are at least five different forms that such reference can take: i) reference in a case record as part of a judicial summary of arguments made by counsel, with no subsequent reliance by the court in its own determination of the matter; ii) a passing reference in the court’s decision, by a way of a footnote or as one of a list of several authorities, whether or not this is accompanied by actual or specific reliance on the authority in the court’s final determination; iii) substantial engagement by the court in terms of discussing the authority without any actual or specific reliance on it in the final determination or finding, that is to say, engagement by the domestic court with a treaty or decision as part of obiter dicta; iv) substantial engagement with a provision or decision, with specific reliance being placed upon it in the final determination by the court, and the domestic court agreeing with such treaty or decision; v) substantial engagement with a provision or decision, with specific reliance being placed on it it the court’s final determination of the matter, but with the domestic court disagreeing with that treaty or provision. In addition, ‘reliance’ can take various additional forms. For instance, a court may rely on a treaty or decision as an aid to the interpretation of domestic law, or might apply such treaty in its own right, that is to say, as a selfexecuting provision. In the narrative parts of this article – in which the specific cases are reviewed – an attempt is made to distinguish as a minimum, between ‘reference’ in the sense of i) above, from that implicated in ii) to v). The account also points out instances in which reliance took the form ‘direct application’ as opposed to being in the nature of use of AU, EU or REC law as an aid to the interpretation of Ugandan law. However, in the tabular representations of the data, and the brief analysis that follows therefrom, ‘reference’ (or ‘citation’) is used as a catch-all phrase, covering all five variations of the term. 3 3.1 THE TREATMENT OF AU LAW IN THE UGANDAN COURTS The African Union There seems to be a paucity of references, in Ugandan case law, to the AU as an institution or law-generating entity. Indeed, we could only find one case that specifically mentioned the AU – the High Court decision in John Kagwa v Kolin Insaat Turizm and Another.9 Even 9 High Court Civil Suit 318 of 2012 (Ruling of Judge Masalu Musene).