Abstract
Uganda’s Constitution gives the Director of Public Prosecutions a deliberately wide decisional field, but article 120 does not convert independence from direction into immunity from law, reasons or review (Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, arts. 120(3), 120(5), 120(6); Bakaleeke v Attorney General, 2019). The controlling constitutional problem is therefore not whether discretion should exist, but how a power capable of determining arrest exposure, charge, trial, bargaining and discontinuance can remain individualised without becoming arbitrary (Davis, 1969, pp. 4–6; Davis, 2007, pp. 5–15; Criminal Procedure Code Act, Cap. 122). This article argues that article 120(5) supplies a legally enforceable grammar of justification: public interest, the administration of justice and prevention of abuse of process are cumulative constraints that must discipline both the substance of a prosecutorial decision and the procedure by which it is reached (Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, art. 120(5); Rutayisire v Uganda Revenue Authority, 2021). The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ 2023 Decision to Charge Guidelines improve evidential screening, public-interest analysis and written recording, yet their denial of correlative third-party rights and their treatment of review material as confidential leave the constitutional promise of accountability institutionally incomplete (Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, 2023, paras. 1.1.6–1.2.1, 2.1.6, 2.3.1, 2.9.1–2.11.7). Ugandan judicial review doctrine recognises legality in principle but often demands proof of improper purpose or irrationality from persons denied the decisional record, producing an accountability paradox in which the claimant must prove what the institution alone can disclose (Bakaleeke v Attorney General, 2019; SP Begira Avito v Attorney General, 2026; cf. Democratic Alliance v Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions, 2012, paras. 37–41). Official performance data deepen rather than resolve that paradox: very high prosecution volumes coexist with major staffing vacancies, incomplete geographic coverage and indicators that measure throughput but not decisional consistency, equality, reason quality or correction on review (Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, 2024, pp. 10, 14–15; Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, 2025, pp. 42, 48, 54; Office of the Auditor General, 2025, pp. 25–26). Drawing on Ugandan doctrine, comparative common-law safeguards and Laurène Soubise’s account of how managerial systems can both constrain and deform judgment, the article rejects the false choice between unchecked autonomy and judicial substitution (Soubise, 2015, pp. 138–149, 160–163, 269–273; R (Corner House Research) v Director of the Serious Fraud Office, 2008, para. 30). It proposes structured discretion: published binding criteria, intelligible contemporaneous reasons, auditable equality data, independent internal reconsideration, proportionate disclosure of the decision record, strengthened remedies and resources directed to decisional quality rather than conviction or output alone (Miller & Wright, 2008, pp. 128–135; Bibas, 2009, pp. 960–970; United Nations, 1990, paras. 12–14, 17–18).
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