Police Detection and Prosecutorial Direction in Uganda

Abstract

Uganda’s Constitution assigns the Police Force the continuing function of preventing and detecting crime, while empowering the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to direct police to investigate information of a criminal nature and report expeditiously. These provisions create an intentional overlap, not a transfer of the investigative function to the prosecutor. This article argues for a model of independent police initiation and accountable prosecutorial direction. The police may receive complaints, pursue leads and take lawful urgent steps without advance permission. Once a properly authorised DPP direction is issued, police must pursue the lawful lines of inquiry and report, while remaining responsible for operational conduct and respect for rights. The article tests that reading against the Police Act, Criminal Procedure Code Act, Uganda’s Prosecution-Guided Investigations Guidelines and decisions concerning institutional overreach, selective inaction and abuse of process. It argues that the Guidelines’ universal language, prosecutor-as-team-leader formulation and treatment of disclosure require careful constitutional reading. A recorded, risk-sensitive protocol for selecting guided cases, preserving adverse evidence and escalating non-compliance would give practical effect to both provisions without converting prosecutorial independence into immunity or police command into an investigative veto.