Buganda Agreements and Colonial Court Limits

The East African Court of Appeal decision in The Katikiro of Buganda v The Attorney General of Uganda remains one of the more useful colonial era authorities for anyone trying to understand the legal force of the Buganda Agreements and the limits of court power under protectorate rule. The case, cited as Civil Appeal No. 11 of 1959, [1959] EACA 17, decided on 9 May 1959 and also reported as [1959] EA 382, arose from a dispute about Buganda representation in the Legislative Council of the Uganda Protectorate. At first glance, it may look like a narrow quarrel over procedure. On a closer reading, though, the decision appears to say much more. It shows how a court separated a political understanding from a legal instrument, how it treated schedules that had been given force of law, and how it drew a firm line around acts of state done by the Crown.

The appeal was heard at Kampala by Sir Kenneth O Connor P, Forbes V P and Gould JA. The case came from the High Court of Uganda, where Bennett J had dismissed the Katikiro's suit. The appellant was the Katikiro, the Chief Minister of Buganda. He sued the Attorney General of the Uganda Protectorate and asked the court for declarations connected with the election of Buganda representatives to the Legislative Council. The dispute had its roots in the Buganda Agreement of 1955. That Agreement had been made between the Governor, acting for Her Majesty the Queen, and the Kabaka, acting for himself, the chiefs and the people of Buganda. The Agreement contained schedules. The First Schedule dealt with Buganda's internal constitution, while the Second Schedule set out how persons would be elected for submission as Buganda representatives in the Legislative Council of Uganda.

A small but important legal detail shaped the whole dispute. The First and Second Schedules had been given the force of law by proclamation. The wider Agreement itself had not been given the same status. That difference may sound technical, but in this case it was everything. It meant that the court could interpret the schedules as legal instruments, yet it did not automatically follow that every promise, expectation or political assurance surrounding the Agreement became enforceable as domestic law. I think this is the easiest way to read the case. The court was not indifferent to Buganda's political complaint. It simply asked whether the complaint had been translated into a legal right that a municipal court could enforce.

The immediate problem arose after changes were made to the Legislative Council. Under later arrangements, a Speaker would normally preside, the Governor would no longer ordinarily preside, and neither the Governor nor the Speaker would have an original or casting vote. The Katikiro argued that this altered body was not the Legislative Council contemplated by the Second Schedule of the 1955 Agreement. On that view, he was not bound to take the election steps set out in the Schedule, because the institution to which those steps related had, in substance, changed. The argument had some political force. If Buganda had agreed to participate in one kind of council, it was understandable that its leaders would object when the structure of that council was later altered. The legal question, however, was narrower and less forgiving.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Sir Kenneth O Connor P reasoned that the Second Schedule, once given force of law, had to be construed as legislation or as a public enactment. It was not to be read as an ordinary private contract. The words used in the Schedule referred to the Legislative Council of the Uganda Protectorate. They did not say that the council had to remain frozen in its 1955 form. Nor did they state that any major change before 1961 would suspend the Katikiro's duties. The court appeared to take the view that, if such a strong restriction had been intended, one would expect it to be stated clearly. It was not enough to rely on general expectations about stability or on the political background to the Agreement.

The Katikiro's alternative argument was that the Crown had broken faith by changing the constitutional arrangements before the expected time. He argued, in effect, that this breach released him from the duties imposed by the Second Schedule. The court did not accept that reasoning. It treated the argument as resting on a mistaken analogy with private contract. Even if contractual language was used, the 1955 Agreement and the later Royal Instructions belonged to the constitutional government of a protectorate. They were not simply bargains between private legal persons. The court considered them, at least in the relevant respect, as acts of state. On that basis, a municipal court could not grant relief that would condemn or control the Crown's constitutional action in the protectorate.

The rule from the decision can be stated in three connected parts. First, where a schedule to a Crown or protectorate agreement has been given force of law, a court may interpret that schedule, but it will do so as a public legal instrument rather than as a private contract. Secondly, where the wider agreement has not itself been incorporated into municipal law, it will not automatically create enforceable rights merely because it records serious political understandings. Thirdly, acts of state done by the Crown in the governance of a protectorate are generally outside the control of ordinary courts unless a clear legal right has been created and the court is competent to enforce it.

That rule is why the case remains valuable beyond its immediate historical setting. Buganda's colonial position was expressed through several types of documents, including agreements, proclamations, Orders in Council, Royal Instructions and schedules. These instruments did not all have the same legal character. Some were political. Some were legal. Some were partly both, depending on which provisions had been incorporated into municipal law. The Katikiro case gives a careful method for sorting that problem. A lawyer has to ask which part of the arrangement has force of law, what language was actually made operative, and whether the remedy sought would require the court to question an act of state.

The jurisdictional part of the decision is also more subtle than it first appears. The court did not say that every case touching the Crown was forbidden territory. It accepted that declaratory relief could be available in a proper case. The problem was that the declarations sought here would have required the court to treat the Crown's constitutional action as a legal breach of the 1955 political settlement. That was the step the court refused to take. So the case is not a simple authority for judicial timidity. It is better understood as an authority about the difference between interpreting law and policing political undertakings of the Crown.

There is a drafting lesson as well. The Katikiro's argument depended heavily on the idea that the Legislative Council described in the Second Schedule meant the council as it existed in 1955. The court did not find those words in the text. It would not imply them from background materials alone. Modern lawyers may find that result formal, perhaps even a little harsh. Still, the point is practical. If a constitutional arrangement is meant to protect a particular institutional structure, the text must say so clearly. General assurances, conference understandings and political expectations may matter historically, but they may not be enough to create a justiciable limitation.

The decision also shows the limited role of surrounding material. The court was aware of the Namirembe Conference, the Kabaka's position and the political environment in which the Agreement was made. It did not ignore history. Yet it refused to let that history rewrite the language that had been given legal effect. This may suggest an early preference for textual discipline in a setting where the political stakes were high. The background could illuminate the instrument, but it could not supply a restriction that the legal text did not contain.

The case sits comfortably with earlier protectorate authorities that treated Crown governance as a matter municipal courts would not readily control by reference to treaty like arrangements with local rulers. It also speaks to later disputes concerning Buganda's constitutional position after independence, although those later disputes arose under different instruments and a different constitutional order. Its strongest modern value is persuasive and historical. It helps explain how courts approached Buganda agreements, the legal effect of schedules, proclamations and Royal Instructions, and the doctrine of act of state in colonial East Africa.

For present legal writing, the case should be used carefully. It is not a current binding statement of Ugandan constitutional law. A modern court would begin with the Constitution, present statutes and current appellate authority. Even so, the decision remains useful where the question is historical or interpretive. It is especially helpful where a researcher is asking whether a colonial agreement created enforceable rights in domestic courts, or whether it remained a political arrangement whose legal force depended on separate incorporation.

The lasting importance of The Katikiro of Buganda v The Attorney General of Uganda lies in its disciplined separation between legal text and political expectation. The court did not deny the seriousness of Buganda's complaint. It simply held that the Second Schedule, properly construed, still applied to the Legislative Council as altered, and that the wider claim of breach of faith by the Crown was not one for municipal adjudication. That conclusion may look formalistic. Yet it is precisely why the case still matters. In constitutional history, a promise does not become enforceable only because it is politically important. It must be carried into law in terms a court can apply.

Source note. This article is based on The Katikiro of Buganda v The Attorney General of Uganda, Civil Appeal No. 11 of 1959, [1959] EACA 17 (9 May 1959), and the legal background to the Buganda Agreement, 1955, Order in Council, 1955 and the Buganda Agreement, 1955. It is prepared for public legal education only and should not be treated as legal advice for any specific constitutional or historical claim.

Suggested citation

Ronald Serwanga, “Buganda Agreements and Colonial Court Limits” East Africa Legal Insight (4 July 2026).