Uganda, Feb. 25 -- A few distortions by some legal luminaries impel us to set the record straight by advancing two important clarifications to sharpen the issues in the emerging national conversation on separation of powers and independence of the Judiciary.

The first one is that independence of the Judiciary is a fairly recent ambition of the people of Uganda. It is, therefore, constantly threatened by enemies of progress and democratic government, including some within the Judiciary and legal profession, and one of their weapons is argumentative meandering.

Barely 30 years old, independence of the Judiciary was declared a national value on October 8, 1995, in the first Constitution that was designed by the people themselves, following...