Abaasa & Anor v Uganda [2018] UGSC 11 (17 April 2018)

Flynote

Criminal law

Case summary

The court considered whether the sentence of life imprisonment is 20 years for those convicts sentenced before the Tigo Stephen case and whether the sentence to a term of 35 years by the Court of Appeal was illegal. The court held that life imprisonment is for the rest of the convict’s remaining natural life as long as a convict was sentenced after January 2009. This Court has discretion to impose a life sentence in offences where the maximum penalty is death. That the scale of 20 years is for remission purposes by the Prison Authorities.

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