98 Kabumba/Application of African Union (human rights) law in Uganda several people dead and countless others injured. Initial investigations indicated that the attacks had been planned across a number of countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the United Kingdom. The petitioners had been arrested from various places in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, charged before a Chief Magistrate’s Court in Uganda, and on 30 November 2010, committed by that Court to the High Court of Uganda for trial. They were ultimately indicted before the International Crimes Division of the Uganda High Court on a number of counts of terrorism, murder and attempted murder. In this constitutional case, the petitioners challenged several aspects of their arrest, rendition and prosecution, and invoked a number of international treaties, including article 6 of the African Charter. For its part, after setting out the provisions of article 6 of the Charter, along with the article 9 of the ICCPR, the Constitutional Court noted that it would ‘bear [these] in mind in the ensuing discussion’,38 especially since those provisions were ‘largely echoed in the constitutional provisions in articles 23 regarding the protection of personal liberty and article 24 relating to respect for human dignity and protection from inhuman treatment’.39 Ultimately, the Court felt that there had not, in fact, been a violation of article 6 of the African Charter, on the facts of the case.40 A more controversial consideration of the African Charter occurred in the 2012 High Court decision in Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera and 3 Others v Attorney General and Another,41 in which Judge Musota (as he then was) appeared to emphasise the claw-back clauses in the Charter rather than its more progressive aspects. The case challenged the closure, by the Ugandan Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity, of a workshop organised by the applicants. The Minister alleged that the workshop implicated illegal activities, namely the ‘promotion of homosexuality’. For their part, the applicants argued that the closure violated, among others, their freedoms of assembly, association and expression. In dismissing these human rights-based claims, the Judge opined that the promotion of morals was a generally recognised ground for the restriction of rights in public interest – one which found expression in the African Charter.42 In particular, the Judge relied on article 27 of the African Charter (requiring rights to be exercised ‘with due regard to the rights of others, collective security, morality and common interest’); article 17(3) (concerning the duty of the state to promote and protect morals and traditional values recognised by the community) and article 29(7) (the duty of the individual to ‘preserve and strengthen positive African cultural values and to contribute to the moral well-being of society’).43 To him, the workshop organised by the complainants was unlawful since it had been convened to promote 38 39 40 41 42 43 At 29. As above. At 70. High Court Misc. Cause 33 of 2012 (Ruling by Stephen Musota J). At 9. As above.