PARLIAMENT yesterday passed the International Criminal Court Bill, 2006, three years after it was tabled. The Bill makes provision in Uganda’s law for the punishment of the international crimes of genocide, crime against humanity and war crimes.

The suspects tried and convicted for the crimes will not be sentenced to death. They will instead be liable to life imprisonment, under the provisions of the Bill.

Although there is already a war crimes court in Uganda, it has not commenced work because of the delay to pass the Bill.

The Bill is intended to enforce the law in Uganda after the Rome Statute was adopted in July 1998 by the UN and ratified by Uganda in June 2002.

The Bill is also intended to enable Uganda cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in performance of its functions, including the investigation and prosecution of persons accused of having committed crimes referred to in the Rome Statute.

It further provides for the arrest and surrender to the ICC of persons alleged to have committed crimes against humanity in addition to enabling the ICC conduct proceedings in Uganda.

The ICC has already indicted Lord’s Resistance Army rebel chief Joseph Kony and his top commanders.

Parliament passed the Bill with amendments, one of which was the deletion of a clause on the death penalty for persons who commit such crimes.

Justifying the deletion, the chairperson of the legal and parliamentary affairs committee, Stephen Tashobya, said the Bill was inconsistent with the Rome Statute, which provides life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for extremely grave crimes.

The committee, Tashobya said, observed that the Rome Statute applies equally to all persons without any distinction.

Parliament also carried an amendment by the deputy Attorney General, Fred Ruhindi, to allow the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to give consent before prosecutions begin, rather than the Attorney General as had been proposed in the Bill.

The House, however, rejected a proposed amendment by the committee to delete the clause on immunity of the president.

The committee had called for the deletion of the clause, arguing that the Bill was inconsistent with the Constitution because it did not recognise the immunity of the president from arrest or court proceedings while holding office.

A total of 110 countries have ratified the Rome Statute, excluding the US and China.