Human rights activist and researcher, Stella Nyanzi has appealed to Members of Parliament sitting on the Health Committee to fast track the Mental Health Bill, 2014 to save many Ugandans that are grappling with mental illnesses.
Nyanzi made the call while appearing before the Parliamentary Health Committee to offer her opinion on the yet to be approved Bill that she claims has taken quite a long time to be implemented.
The Bill was first tabled before Parliament in 2004 and later brought back in 2014.
“The government and our legislators have let down the mental fraternity; it’s now 14 years and so many Bills have been enacted and ascented to by President Museveni. But a Bill pertaining to the mental health being of Ugandans has been ignored 14 years,” Nyanzi said.
Nyanzi asked legislators to ensure that the law is not delayed further as the legislators themselves are liable candidates of mental sickness.
“A lot of Ugandans including many of you in this room have got mental illness. One day these laws will come and bite your own. All of you have got different forms of mental illnesses here,” she said, alluding to the dramatic brawl that ensued in September Parliament last year, during the debate on the contentious Presidential age limit.
“You may think that you are drafting the Bill for Stella Nyanzi and those at Butabika Hospital but as you do this for me, you are implicated in this.”
Nyanzi finds Clause 10 sub section 2 of the law which states that “where a police officer who arrests a person for a criminal act has reasonable grounds to suspect that the person arrested has a mental illness” irrelevant and aimed at targeting opposition members by arresting them on grounds that they mentally ill.
“This Bill is empowering the Police to come and arrest anybody without a warrant so think through what you are saying because today it may be me but tomorrow it will be you,” she told the committee.
She reminded the MPs that whereas legislations are meant to ensure that laws prevail, they can also be used to oppress and abuse people especially those opposed to government.