Earlier this month, Uganda’s Constitutional Court advanced women’s rights when it modified provisions of that country’s intestacy laws. As reported at allafrica.com in this story:
The court … nullified several sections of the Succession Act, which dealt with property for widows, guardianship of children and domicile upon marriage. The judges added that the laws treated women as second-class citizens and were therefore inconsistent with the Constitution. The Succession Act provisions which were struck out include Section 27, referring to intestacy, meaning a spouse dying without making a Will. The law provided that in such a case the administrator-general took over the family property, leaving the widow with no rights.
The court also agreed … that [Section 27] was unfair to entitle widows to 15% of the husband’s property, while it was silent on the widower, thus assuming he was entitled to 100%.
Also scrapped was Section 26, terminating a widow’s rights to the matrimonial property as soon as she remarried, while a widower kept his rights when he remarried. The court also deleted Section 43, which gave only fathers the right to decide on the guardianship of their children if one parent died. The court agreed that this undermined the mother’s rights and presupposed that women were incapable. Removed was also Section 44, which gave the male lineage rights over the female lineage when a husband dies. The law provided that the husband’s male relatives took over the family property and offspring, wresting control out of the widow’s hands. Also scrapped were sections 14 and 15, which prescribed that the wife moved to her husband’s home area. She would consequently lose both homes in case she divorced. The Court agreed that this impacted on the woman’s rights.
-Bridget Crawford
