The paper considers several recent constitutional cases in Uganda, including Constitutional Petition No. 5 of 2003, which struck down several sections of the Political Parties and Organisations Act, aimed at suppressing opposition party activity, and Constitutional Appeal No. 1 of 2002, in which the Supreme Court held that a constitutional amendment which had enabled the 2000 Referendum on political systems was unconstitutional, as examples of an emerging constitutional dialogue in Uganda. The paper examines the history of constitutionalism in Uganda, the 1995 Constitution, and recent constitutional cases in order to analyse the tools available within the Ugandan constitutional framework that make a meaningful dialogue between the courts and the legislature possible, and the ways in which these have, or have not been used in recent decisions. The paper discusses dialogue theory with an emphasis on the use of dialogue in the comparative (and particularly Canadian) context and considers whether dialogue is possible in nondemocratic systems. The recent cases indicate that not only is there the beginnings of a process of dialogue in Uganda, but that this dialogue may in fact be more important in some senses than it is within the democratic framework, since given the lack of open debate in Parliament and other fora, the dialogue between the courts and the legislature is often the only place in which important issues can be debated. However, recent developments, such as Museveni's reaction to the court's decision in Constitutional Petition No. 3 of 2000 which nullified the results of the 2000 Referendum, show how fragile this process of dialogue may be.

The African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, which was opened for signature in 2003, contains some innovative and valuable provisions, but also several unacceptable provisions that violate the presumption of innocence, make it too easy to disregard data privacy and threaten good-faith whistleblowers, among others. In addition, the translations are unsatisfactory, to the point that the texts in different languages are significantly different in substance and sometimes contradict one another. Parts of the English text are almost unintelligible. The Convention should be revised before it enters into force.

Although the prevailing tendency is to view the executive and, to a lesser extent, the legislature as the primary drivers of the developmental process in any country, this paper situates the judiciary in the Nigerian developmental process. Seldom is the judiciary recognized as an equal partner in the developmental process: when the system works, which suggests that their job is being done well, the judiciary is rarely the destination of praise, but as their failure (real or imagined) is often incandescent, blame is easily lavished on them. This article brings attention to what it terms “judicial government” but contextualizes the judiciary's performance against the backdrop of the constraints to which it is subject and it crucially identifies self-inflicted constraints. These self-inflicted constraints impact on the size of the Supreme Court's docket (which affects the quality of dispensed justice) and the issue of costs in the litigation process.

Democracy and the adoption of a Bill of Rights for South Africa not only brought about political change, but it also created expectations of a better life for all. The Constitution guarantees equality before the law, access to a fair hearing and the right to legal representation in criminal matters, and the Legal Aid Board is one of the institutions tasked with giving effect to these pledges. In order to achieve its objectives and to fulfil its obligations, government embarked upon a process of transformation of existing structures and institutions and the creation of new ones. Although legal aid, and statutory provision therefore, are not new concepts in South Africa, constitutionalization resulted in the restructuring of the Legal Aid Board and changes in the method of delivery of its services. The focus is on rendering legal representation in criminal matters to the neglect of civil and non-legal problems that the poor often face, resulting in the impression that government is merely paying lip service to the promise of access to justice. This lends credence to the perception that the legal system exists in order to protect the interests of criminals. Being a developing country, it is comprehensible that priorities have to be set, but it is also true that optimum use should be made of existing structures and resources in order to deal with the needs for legal aid services as expressed by the recipients of those services. Involving students and local government are two methods that can be employed to address the multi-farious problems experienced by the less fortunate members of society.

The decision of the Nigerian Supreme Court in the case of the Attorney General of the Federation v. the Attorney General of Abia State & 35 Ors. was delivered on 5 April, 2002 in respect of the proviso to section 162(2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which incorporates what is popularly known in Nigeria as the “derivation formula”. It brought to the forefront the need to determine (especially as regards revenue derived from the oil and gas resources) whether the offshore bed of the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of Nigeria should be regarded as part of the littoral states of the federation or not? This article critically examines the decision of the Supreme Court as it relates to the “ownership” of the offshore seabed as between the federal Government and the littoral states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.