Evolution of British legal authority in Uganda with special emphasis on Buganda : 1890-1938

Abstract

The main object of this study is to determine the basis of British legal authority in Uganda, with a special emphasis on Buganda, and to trace its development from the time the territory was declared a British sphere of influence up to 1938. I propose the thesis that, according to the prevailing view of the British administration and its legal advisers, both in England and locally, the Crown’s powers were restricted by international law and/or municipal law at various stages during this period: by the concept of sphere of influence; by the theory of protectorates; and by virtue of the agreements which the Crown made with the kings and chiefs of Buganda. Through an evolutionary process which involved partly a change in the perception of the law and partly a series of subsequent agreements with the local rulers, the legal authority of the Crown was extended. The investigation is primarily based upon official correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and contemporary documents, kept in London at the Public Records Office, the Foreign Office Library, and the British Museum Library. I also examined semiofficial and private records kept at Rhodes House, Oxford. For political and other reasons it was not possible to do research in Uganda. However, I had access to Professor Anthony Low’s personal notes taken at the Entebbe Secretariat Archives. This study demonstrates that, contrary to the views of previous writers, lawyers and historians, the law acted as an impediment upon the Uganda Protectorate Government,. It shows that the administrators at the time believed that they were under various inescapable legal constraints. They did not appreciate that the Crown, in the light of later advances in legal theory, had always been entitled to exercise plenary powers in Buganda; for it was only at the end of the period studied that the Uganda High Court held that, on the basis of judicial precedents from other jurisdictions, the Crown’s legal powers in the Protectorate were unlimited.