HUB and Access to Wealth Declarations

HUB for Investigative Media and Another v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition 3 of 2020) [2024] UGCC 25 (12 December 2024) is a significant Constitutional Court decision on access to information in Uganda. Its importance is not limited to journalists or civil society groups. The case speaks to a wider question that often appears simple until one looks closely at it: when public leaders submit declarations of income, assets and liabilities, should those documents remain almost entirely under official control, or should ordinary citizens have a meaningful route to see them? The Court’s answer was careful rather than sweeping. It accepted that public officers still have privacy interests, but it also treated wealth declarations as part of a constitutional accountability system rather than as ordinary private records.

The petition was brought by HUB for Investigative Media, a civil society organisation concerned with access to information and public accountability, together with Edward Ronald Sekyewa, an investigative journalist. The respondent was the Attorney General. The judgment records a Constitutional Court panel composed of Egonda Ntende, Luswata, Kihika, Kazibwe and Mugenyi, JJCC, with the judgment delivered by Oscar John Kihika, JA. The petitioners challenged provisions in the Leadership Code framework that regulated public access to declarations filed by leaders and public officers. Their concern was that the law had created barriers that made access to those declarations too dependent on the discretion of the Inspectorate of Government.

The background to the case is fairly practical. Uganda’s Leadership Code system requires specified leaders and public officers to declare their income, assets and liabilities. On paper, that requirement is meant to discourage unexplained wealth, conflicts of interest, misuse of office and other forms of conduct that undermine public trust. A declaration system, however, can become weak if the information remains sealed away from the very public in whose name accountability is being pursued. The petitioners argued that the 2017 amendments made this danger real by requiring an applicant to pay a prescribed fee and by allowing access only where the Inspectorate was satisfied that disclosure would assist enforcement of the Leadership Code or another law. The applicant also had to undertake not to disclose the contents to anyone else.

The constitutional question was whether those restrictions were consistent with the right of access to information under Article 41 of the Constitution. The petitioners also relied on Article 21 on equality, Article 29 on expression and Article 43 on the limitation of rights. Put more plainly, the Court had to decide whether Parliament could regulate access to public officers’ declarations in a way that made public access narrow, conditional and difficult. It was not a claim that privacy has no place in public life. It was a claim that privacy could not be used as a broad excuse to remove public accountability documents from public scrutiny.

Before reaching the substance, the Court treated the petition as a proper constitutional matter. That point may look technical, but it matters. The petitioners identified specific statutory provisions and alleged inconsistency with named constitutional rights. The Court therefore regarded the dispute as one requiring constitutional interpretation. This fits with earlier Ugandan authority, including Ismail Serugo v Kampala City Council and Attorney General v Major General David Tinyefuza, where courts explained that constitutional jurisdiction arises when a law, act or omission is alleged to violate the Constitution. For future litigants, this part of the case may suggest that access to information disputes can properly reach the Constitutional Court when the complaint is about the constitutional validity of a statutory restriction.

The Court was not persuaded that the fee requirement was unconstitutional. Justice Kihika reasoned that a prescribed fee, applied generally, did not by itself amount to discrimination. Public bodies commonly charge fees for certain services, including certified documents and court processes. The petitioners had not shown that the fee was so high that it destroyed the practical ability to access information. On that basis, the Court upheld the requirement of a written application accompanied by the prescribed fee, including the statutory ceiling that the fee should not exceed twenty five currency points. This part of the decision is likely to remain open to debate, because the affordability of a fee can change over time and may affect journalists, small organisations and ordinary citizens differently.

The stronger part of the petition concerned the conditions that limited access after the fee had been paid. The Court accepted that public officials do not lose all privacy merely because they take office. That would be too blunt a position. Still, the Court appeared to recognise that public office changes the weight of the privacy argument. A person who exercises public power, receives public funds, influences public resources or holds a position of trust must accept a higher level of scrutiny. Declarations required under the Leadership Code are not family diaries or purely personal papers. They exist because the Constitution and related laws expect public leadership to be open to integrity checks.

For that reason, the Court rejected the provisions that made access depend on the Inspectorate being satisfied that disclosure would assist enforcement of the Code or another law. It also rejected the condition that an applicant should not disclose the contents to another person. Those requirements, in the Court’s view, were inconsistent with Article 41 and with the public accountability purpose of the Leadership Code. If access were limited only to situations where an official body thought disclosure would help enforcement, the public would become a passive observer rather than an active participant in accountability. A journalist who sees a leader living far beyond known income, for example, may need access precisely because official enforcement has not yet noticed the problem.

The outcome was mixed. The petitioners did not succeed on the fee issue, but they succeeded on the more serious secrecy conditions. The Court ordered that the Inspectorate of Government should grant access to declarations submitted under the Leadership Code Act, subject to Article 41 of the Constitution. Article 41 still allows refusal where disclosure is likely to prejudice State security or sovereignty, or interfere with another person’s privacy. The point is that those are constitutional limitations. Parliament and public bodies cannot add extra barriers that change the nature of the right and make transparency depend almost entirely on administrative permission.

The rule from the case is that declarations of income, assets and liabilities under the Leadership Code are public accountability records. Parliament may prescribe reasonable procedures for access, including fees that are not shown to be excessive, but it may not create conditions that defeat the substance of the constitutional right to information. Privacy remains relevant, but it cannot operate as a blanket shield over declarations made because of public office. This rule is especially useful where a public institution tries to rely on confidentiality language, administrative discretion or vague privacy concerns to refuse information that serves an oversight function.

The decision matters in daily governance terms. Asset declaration laws can look impressive on paper, yet fail in practice if only enforcement bodies can see the records and those bodies lack resources, independence or urgency. Public access gives citizens, journalists and civil society a chance to compare declarations with visible lifestyles, land records, company interests or public procurement patterns. That does not mean every request will be responsible or every publication fair. The Court’s approach leaves room for privacy and legal safeguards. But it also recognises that meaningful accountability cannot depend only on officials reviewing other officials behind closed doors.

There is also a useful caution in the judgment. Anyone challenging a fee should bring evidence. It may not be enough to say that a fee is unfair in the abstract. A petitioner would be stronger if they showed how many people could not pay it, how it compares with ordinary income, how it compares with the real administrative cost, and whether requests had actually been abandoned because of cost. By contrast, a challenge to secrecy conditions can be built more directly from the constitutional text, the purpose of the accountability law and the public interest in disclosure. In that sense, the case gives both a precedent and a litigation lesson.

In the end, HUB for Investigative Media and Another v Attorney General is a leading Ugandan authority on constitutional transparency. It does not require uncontrolled publication of every financial detail, and it does not deny the privacy of public officers. Its real contribution is more modest but perhaps more important. It says that when the law requires leaders to declare wealth as part of public accountability, access must remain real. A declaration that cannot be meaningfully accessed may satisfy paperwork, but it is unlikely to satisfy the Constitution’s deeper demand for accountable public power.

Source note. This article is based on HUB for Investigative Media and Another v Attorney General, Constitutional Petition 3 of 2020, [2024] UGCC 25, Constitutional Court of Uganda, judgment delivered on 12 December 2024, with reference to Article 41 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, the Leadership Code Act, and the Access to Information Act. It is prepared for public legal education only and should not be treated as legal advice for any specific access to information request.

Suggested citation

Ronald Serwanga, “HUB and Access to Wealth Declarations” East Africa Legal Insight (18 June 2026).