the High Court commuted the death sentences for...

the High Court commuted the death sentences for Susan Kigula and Patience Nansamba to prison sentences of 20 and 16 years, respectively. Susan Kigula, and Patience Nansamba as her accomplice, were sentenced to death in September 2002 for the murder of Kigula’s live-in partner Constantino Sseremba. At the time the law in Uganda prescribed the death penalty as the mandatory punishment for all cases of murder. The two women were placed on the death row until 20 January 2009, when the Supreme Court ruled that the high court should review all cases of mandatory death sentence. In 2008, Kigula led a group of 417 death row inmates to challenge the constitutionality of a mandatory death sentence in statute books.