It is a dangerous time to be a stellar legal mind in Uganda. Much more so if you are passionate about human rights. They are tired, sick, broke or dying. What’s more, the Government is starving them of financial sources and hounding them with bogus charges, sham trials, exile, arrest warrants and oppressive sentences.
They beat and detain them detain here, those that speak up against Government or represent those who do. Ask me, Male Mabirizi, Nicholas Opiyo, Isaac Kimaze Ssemakadde, Esomu Simon Peter, Odur Anthony.
Standing up to tyranny and working for freedom has a steep price in a military dictatorship like Uganda. Prof. Kanyeimba lost opportunities for promotion at home, friends betrayed him, was passed over for appointment to international bodies and run into exile simply because of his mouth, his courage and his pen.
He used his talent in service of rule of law, constitutionalism and humanity. He did so with a range, rigor and consistency only a handful can contemplate. Hon. Karua Martha, one of Kenya’s Presidents in-waiting said yesterday of his death that he was legal luminary in Uganda, East African and beyond.
That spoke to his conceptual and geographical range. His range makes writing about Kayeihamba the Incredible––this is a title of one of his books––intimidating.
I confessed as much on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday, Monday 14th July 2025 about two hours after his death noting that I was yet to find the words to describe the loss of the great legal scholar, a legal giant, prolific writer and rule of law champion, to Uganda, the legal fraternity, and the World.
As far as legal mountain ranges go, there was no higher legal peak in the land. He out-wrote, out-shone and out produced all his legal peers in the Pearl of Africa with his pen vomiting the ink of less than 20 publications.
He spoke with pride of his work in United Nations conferences including one that happened in Tehran that has recently braved a torrent of hell from Netanyahu’s Israel. He loved his international family (he loved in UK in exile and married a white Briton), as most fathers do, and expanded it to include strangers not connected to him by consanguinity.
URN Courtesy Photo of Counsel Eron Kiiza on handcuffs battling contempt of court charges.
Some people talk of death as though it is a light matter but it boasts of a finality and permanence that even the author of death be not proud, John Donne, would concede. Death has that levelling effect that another poet, James Shirley, immortalised in Death the Leveller. To his credit, James Shirley notes that only virtuous actions and good deeds will be remembered after death. It worth pointing that some good deeds are buried with their authors but there is wisdom remembering the good deeds of GWK. Let’s defy Mark Antony’s pronouncement that “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
Everyone will scream the legal volleys of George. The starting point to GWK, however is that he was a well of humour that never run dry. He could crack a joke on the page, in class, in the library, in court, anywhere. He was as brave in humour as he was in espousing legal and political opinion. He once told us of a man that found his ex-wife with a current husband and decided to stir verbal trouble to his own chagrin.
The man asked his ex, pointing to her current husband, whether that was man comfortable with eating left overs. The ex-wife wasted no time defending her current husband in a retort that her current hubby was the man who was exploring all the corners the ex-husband never touched. We laughed. GWK was already laughing at his own joke. This was in the middle of a solemn public interest litigation. There is humour in his books that I recommend.
One is one of his best works, his autobiographical: “The Joy and Blessings of Being Who You are.” Some people would recommend what for lawyers may be his Magnum Opus: Evolution of Constitutional Law, Public Law and Government.
Kanyeihamba as an author was inevitable and inescapable when we were in Law School. I hope that is still the case. But Kanyeimba wrote legal literature that was accessible to both legal minds and people not interested in legal pursuits. He avoided pomp and legalese in his writing. Students of politics, history, human rights and other humanities would happily savour his literary dishes. His writing spread wings to such general to topics as planning, Muslim disputes and wise sayings. He boasted of both depth and a rich range.
He taught here and abroad. He was a Vice Chancellor of Kampala International University before he fell out with its owner businessman Basajjabalaba. He served as a Supreme Court Judge in Uganda. As a former Attorney General, Minister of Justice, Minister of Commerce, Member of Parliament, and the Constituent Assembly, Prof. Kanyeihamba had, in the written words of Former Chief Justice of Sechelles and Justice of the Court of Appeal of Uganda, Fredrick Egonda-Ntende, a ringside seat at observing what was unfolding in Uganda. He was both a key participant and keen observer of modern Uganda’s history.
By 1976, he had written a major text in constitutional law that was essential reading for law students, lawyers, history students and students and researchers in administrative law and administration generally. The title was: The Constitution and Government of Uganda.
The constitution and governance were his pet subjects. Emphasising the supremacy of the constitution in defence of rule of law, GWK famously ruled in Presidential Election Petition No. 1 of 2006; Col. (RTD) Dr. Kiiza Besigye V. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni & Another that: “The overriding principle of the Rule of Law is that the Constitution is the alpha and omega of everything that is orderly, descent and legitimate, anything that claims to be higher, should be shot at once, by the Supreme Court, using the strongest legal missiles at its disposal”.
In UK he moved beyond his university work place giving lectures on a wide array of topics including those on dismantling racism to students and the general public. His international outlook also entailed marrying a white woman despite being an avid lover of his African roots; and insisting on returning and working in Uganda. He returned to serve his country hoping to help it closure a dark chapter in its governance.
. To this end, he served in Museveni’s Government, until he discussed a cabinet line-up with Museveni, finalising it deep into the night/morning only for Museveni to announce a different cabinet excluding him. Museveni had told him to write the cabinet starting with himself.
Prof. Kanyeihamba was a rose. Roses have prickles. He clearly pierced some. Some unfairly but he often acted in good faith. He was a great man with a good heart. He was rude sometimes and interviewing him was a nightmare, some journalists can testify. He was preachy and once he had your audience, you had cross other items on your agenda because he was interesting with tons of humour and stamina but he would also not allow to leave.
He was no perfect gentleman. He was a great man with the strengths and weaknesses of great men in a complex society full of contradictions some of which he mirrored.
Some great men and women get recognition. In 2018, Prof. Kanyeihamba was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his scholarly and intellectual contributions to democracy, rule of law human rights and constitutionalism.
He had several awards to his name. he left behind literature, memories, children and a Foundation that will ensure that his colossal legacy will never wither into oblivion. As I remarked in a poem titled: The Phenomenal Jurist, in March 2021, he was a forest of wisdom/oozing with the biodiversity of humour/shielding the fauna of bottomless knowledge/blossoming with the flora of legal excellence.
Kiiza Eron
Human Rights Lawyer
Kampala – Uganda.
Tuesday, 15 July 2025.