Discrimination on the Ground of Age in Uganda: Analysing Madrama Izama v. Attorney General (Constitutional Appeal No.01 of 2016) [2019] UGSC 1 (14 February 2019)

Article 21(2) of the Ugandan constitution provides that ‘a person shall not be discriminated against on the ground of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, birth, creed or religion, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability’. Article 21(3) defines discrimination to mean ‘to give different treatment to different persons attributable only or mainly to their respective descriptions by sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, birth, creed or religion, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability’. Age is not one of the grounds mentioned in Article 21 against which a person may not be discriminated against. In Madrama Izama v. Attorney General the Ugandan Supreme Court dealt with the issue of whether, notwithstanding the fact that age is not mentioned under Article 21, a person could argue that he has a right not to be discriminated against on the basis of age. The majority judgment answered that question in the negative whereas the minority judgments came to the opposite conclusion. In this article, the author highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the majority and minority judgments.