Prosecutorial Direction and the Limits of Guided Investigation in Uganda

Abstract

Article 120(3)(a) of Uganda's Constitution empowers the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to direct the police to investigate information of a criminal nature and report expeditiously. The Prosecution-Guided Investigations Guidelines give that power an operational form, but their language of prosecutorial leadership and successful trials risks blurring the distinct functions of police investigator and independent prosecutor. Drawing on Kanaba Estates, Soon Yeon Kong Kim, Juma and Kituu, this article distinguishes the DPP's freedom to decide a case from the practical ability to obtain and test the facts on which that decision depends. It argues that Article 120(3)(a) offers a means to preserve the latter form of independence without transferring police coercive powers to the prosecutor or authorising executive control of investigative outcomes. The Guidelines' treatment of arrest, confessions and disclosure must also be reconciled with constitutional rights and later charging policy. A selective, recorded and reviewable model of direction would protect the completeness of the investigative record while preserving the prosecutor's freedom to decline a charge.