Uganda declares criminal defamation unconstitutional, strikes down cybercrime law
Kampala, March 19, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Tuesday’s ruling by the Constitutional Court of Uganda to declare criminal defamation unconstitutional, the latest African court to abolish the crime in recent years.
In a consolidated judgment, in response to three petitions filed by rights groups in 2022, the court also nullified the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Act, 2022, finding that Parliament passed the law without the mandatory quorum of one-third of all members.
“The abolition of criminal defamation marks a historic victory for press freedom in Uganda and brings the country closer to international human rights standards,” said CPJ Africa Director Angela Quintal. “While we welcome this progress, authorities must ensure that defamation is not re-criminalized through the legislative back door. Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas.”
The five-judge bench held that criminal defamation, for which the maximum penalty was two years in prison, violated the right to freedom of expression and was not in the national interest. It said civil laws awarding damages to those wronged provided adequate remedies.
The court found that Section 162 of the Penal Code Act, 1950, which defines libel — or written defamation — was “vague” and “falls short of the requirement that the law must be formulated with sufficient precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly.” It ruled that Section 162 was also “inconsistent” with Uganda’s international commitments to freedom of expression under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The court also nullified Section 163 as its definition of “what amounts to defamatory matter will most likely be subjective.”
Arrest, harassment of journalists
In recent years, Uganda has tightened its grip on free expression, using the two laws to arrest and harass journalists, activists, and social media users, fostering fear and self-censorship.
The landmark judgment also declared the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Act, 2022, which critics said stifled the sharing of information, “null and void” as lawmakers did not have quorum to vote. The law had introduced broad prohibitions on the sharing of “unsolicited” and “malicious information” and online content likely to “ridicule, degrade or demean” others, with provisions for up to seven years imprisonment.
Uganda joins a growing list of African nations, including Gambia (2018), Lesotho (2018), Malawi (2025), and Zimbabwe (2014), that have revoked criminal defamation following legal challenges from journalists and civil society. The parliaments of Ghana (2001), Liberia (2019), Seychelles (2021), Sierra Leone (2020), and South Africa (2024) and approved laws abolishing criminal defamation.
While Kenya ruled against criminal defamation in 2017, the judgment was rendered ineffective by a 2018 law that reintroduced prison terms for the publication of false news that injures the reputation of others and cyber harassment. The false news provision was declared unconstitutional earlier this month.
‘We will challenge it again’
Eron Kiiza, one of the lawyers who represented the petitioners, told CPJ that Parliament could reintroduce the computer misuse law “but since it imposes an unnecessary and disproportionate restriction on criticism, it is bound to suffer the same fate as criminal libel, which the court struck down after a substantive review.”
“It would be a waste of taxpayers’ time and money. Laws that stifle criticism are unnecessary, undemocratic, and unconstitutional,” he added.
George Musisi, another of the petitioners’ lawyers, told CPJ that resolving the case on procedural grounds, rather than examining its content, left a window for Parliament to reintroduce the law, as previously happened with the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
If necessary, “we will challenge it again,” he said.