Examining the Legal and Institutional Framework Governing Public Land Management in Uganda

Land is the foundation of Uganda's economy, society and environment, and the management of the land in which the public has an interest, government land, formerly public land, and the natural resources held in trust for the people, is a matter of the first national importance. The 1995 Constitution transformed the land regime, abolishing the former category of public land vested in the State and vesting land instead in the citizens under four tenure systems, while leaving the State as the holder of government land and as the trustee of natural resources for the common good. This article examines the legal and institutional framework governing public land management in Uganda. It sets out the concept of public land in the post-1995 framework and the transformation that produced it; it examines the legal framework, comprising the constitutional provisions on the vesting, trust and compulsory acquisition of land, the Land Act Cap 236 and the Registration of Titles Act Cap 240; and it analyses the institutional framework, comprising the Uganda Land Commission, the District Land Boards, the Area Land Committees, the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, and the courts, together with the jurisprudence, including Kampala District Land Board v National Housing and Construction Corporation, Kampala District Land Board v Babweyaka, Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment v Attorney General, Advocates for Natural Resources v Attorney General, and Uganda National Roads Authority v Irumba. The article argues that Uganda possesses a comprehensive and well-conceived constitutional and statutory framework for the management of public land, but that its effectiveness is gravely undermined by land grabbing, corruption, overlapping mandates, weak records and limited capacity, and it recommends the clarification and coordination of institutional mandates, the strengthening of institutional integrity and capacity, the modernisation of land records, the effective protection of land held in trust, and the faithful observance of the constitutional requirement of prompt and adequate compensation.