The legal committee of Parliament has been directed to expeditiously present a motion for amendment of the Penal Code Act with a view of removing the idle and disorderly offence from the laws of the land.
The directive by Speaker Rebecca Kadaga follows President Yoweri Museveni's repeated calls to police to stop arresting people for being idle and disorderly.
He first made the call during the 2016 presidential campaigns while addressing supporters at Kazo in Wakiso District.
But with continued arrests under the same offence, Museveni during his State of the Nation Address on 6th June repeated the order arguing that a number of Ugandans lack employment.
Following this order, the IGP, Gen. Kale Kayihura recently ordered his boys to stop arresting the youth for this offence.
On Tuesday, Kadaga lashed at the office of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice for failing to propose the deletion of the section on idle and disorderly from the penal code yet citizens continue to suffer unnecessarily.
Section 167 of the Penal Code Act criminalizes wandering persons, those gambling for cash or prostituting as being idle and disorderly. If convicted by court, they, if prostitutes or involved in soliciting for immoral purpose, face a maximum seven years imprisonment while other aspects of the offence attract three months in jail or 3,000 Shillings in fine or both.
Critics of the provision on idle and disorderly say it was enacted during the colonial era and is now outdated and oppressive in nature.
