Criminal procedure code act laws of uganda

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE ACT.

Commencement: 15 June, 1950.

An Act to make provision for the procedure to be followed in criminal cases.

In this Code, unless the context otherwise requires—

(a) "chief magistrate" means any person whose appointment to be, or to act as, a chief magistrate has been published in the Gazette;

(b) "cognisable offence" means any offence—

(i) which on conviction may be punished by a term of imprisonment for one year or more; or

(ii) which on conviction may be punished by a fine exceeding 4,000 shillings;

(d) "officer in charge of a police station" includes any officer superior in rank to an officer in charge of a police station and also includes, when the officer in charge of the police station is absent from the station house, or unable from illness or other cause to perform his or her duties, the police officer present at the station house who is next in rank to that officer, and is above the rank of constable, or, when the Minister so directs, any other police officer so present;

(e) "police officer" includes any member of a police force established under the Constitution or the Police Act;

(f) "police station" means a post or place appointed by the Inspector General of Police to be a police station, and includes any local area policed from the station.

PART II
GENERAL PROVISIONS.

ARREST, ESCAPE AND RETAKING.

(1) In making an arrest the police officer or other person making it shall actually touch or confine the body of the person to be arrested, unless there be a submission to the custody by word or action.

(2) If a person forcibly resists the endeavour to arrest him or her, or attempts to evade the arrest, the police officer or other person making the arrest may use all means necessary to effect the arrest.

(3) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to justify the use of greater force than was reasonable in the particular circumstances in which it was employed or was necessary for the apprehension of the offender.

3. Search of place entered by person sought to be arrested.

(1) If any person acting under a warrant of arrest, or any police officer having authority to arrest, has reason to believe that the person to be arrested has entered into or is within any place, the person residing in or being in charge of that place shall, on demand of the person acting under the warrant or such police officer, allow him or her free ingress to the place and afford all reasonable facilities for a search in it.

(2) If ingress to such place cannot be obtained under subsection (1), it shall be lawful in any case for a person acting under a warrant, and in any case in which a warrant may issue, but cannot be obtained without affording the person to be arrested an opportunity to escape, for a police officer, to enter the place and search in it, and in order to effect an entrance into the place, to break open any outer or inner door or window of any house or place, whether that of the person to be arrested or of any other person, if after notification of his or her authority and purpose, and demand of admittance duly made, he or she cannot otherwise obtain admittance.

4. Power to break out for purposes of liberation.

Any police officer or other person authorised to make an arrest may break out of any house or place in order to liberate himself or herself or any other person who, having lawfully entered for the purpose of making an arrest, is detained there.

5. No unnecessary restraint.

The person arrested shall not be subjected to more restraint than is necessary to prevent his or her escape.

6. Search of person arrested.

(1) Whenever a person is arrested—

(a) by a police officer under a warrant which does not provide for the taking of bail, or under a warrant which provides for the taking of bail but the person arrested cannot furnish bail; or

(b) without warrant, or by a private person under a warrant, and the person arrested cannot legally be admitted to bail or is unable to furnish bail,

the police officer making the arrest or, when the arrest is made by a private person, the police officer to whom he or she makes over the person arrested, may search that person and place in safe custody all articles, other than necessary wearing apparel, found upon him or her.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), a police officer may search any person who has been arrested and may take possession of anything found on the person which might reasonably be used as evidence in any criminal proceedings.

7. Power of police officer to detain and search vehicles and persons.

(1) Any police officer may stop, search or detain any vessel, boat, aircraft or vehicle in or upon which there is reason to suspect that anything stolen or unlawfully obtained may be found and also any person who may be reasonably suspected of having in his or her possession or conveying in any manner anything stolen or unlawfully obtained, and may seize any such thing.

(2) Any police officer searching any building, vessel, carriage, box, receptacle or place under section 70 of the Magistrates Courts Act who finds in that building, vessel, carriage, box, receptacle or place anything which he or she reasonably suspects to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained may seize that thing, notwithstanding that it is not anything for which he or she is searching by virtue of the warrant.

8. Mode of searching women.

Whenever it is necessary to cause a woman to be searched, the search shall be made by another woman with strict regard to decency.

9. Power to seize offensive weapons.

A police officer or other person making any arrest may take from the person arrested any offensive weapons which he or she has about his or her person, and shall deliver all weapons so taken to the court or officer before which or whom the police officer or person making the arrest is required by law to produce the person arrested.

10. Arrest without warrant.

Any police officer may, without an order from a magistrate and without a warrant, arrest—

(a) any person whom he or she suspects upon reasonable grounds of having committed a cognisable offence, an offence under any of the provisions of Chapter XVI of the Penal Code Act or any offence for which under any law provision is made for arrest without warrant;

(b) any person who commits a breach of the peace in his or her presence;

(c) any person who obstructs a police officer while in the execution of his or her duty, or who has escaped or attempts to escape from lawful custody;

(d) any person whom he or she suspects upon reasonable grounds of being a deserter from the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces;

(e) any person whom he or she finds in any highway, yard or other place during the night and whom he or she suspects upon reasonable grounds of having committed or being about to commit a felony;

(f) any person whom he or she suspects upon reasonable grounds of having been concerned in any act committed at any place out of Uganda which, if committed in Uganda, would have been punishable as an offence, and for which he or she is, under the provisions of any written law, liable to be apprehended and detained in Ugand

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