Issue I - Ethnic discrimination in nationality law 19. Uganda’s colonial boundaries were drafted arbitrarily, resulting in cross-border communities residing in neighbouring countries including, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Kenya.18 The Third Schedule to Uganda’s 1995 Constitution added another complex layer in defining who belongs to the country, explicitly identifying ethnic communities whose ancestors were of indigenous origin to Uganda as birth right citizens. The Third Schedule to the Constitution, as amended in 2005, attributes nationality at birth only to those that are members of 65 ethnic groups or their descendants.19 20. Ethnic minorities like the Maragoli, the Benet, the Bakingwe, the Bagabo groups, of Asian and European descent who have lived in Uganda since before 1926, are not eligible to acquire or transmit Ugandan citizenship by birth since they are not listed in the Third Schedule of the Constitution, despite efforts to advocate for their recognition as an indigenous community.20 21. The Maragoli have been a stateless community since the adoption of the 1995 Constitution. They are part of the larger Luhya ethnic group of Kenya. It is estimated there are around 18,000 Maragolis in Uganda.21 The 2014-2015 countrywide National Identification registration exercise by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) led to the withholding of national IDs of the Maragoli because they do not meet the constitutional requirements to acquire Ugandan nationality. In recognition of their plight, the government offered the Maragoli citizenship by naturalisation, submitting them, however, to a discretionary process based on 20 years of residency in Uganda and not allowing them to transmit their citizenship to the next generation, thus providing a temporary solution.22 22. In 2014, the Maragoli community filed a petition to the parliament seeking recognition as an indigenous Ugandan tribe.23 In 2015, community leaders were invited to present their case to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament which was considering a Constitution Amendment Bill. The Committee recommended the establishment of a Constitutional Review Commission. In 2016, the Solicitor General advised NIRA that the Maragoli should be issued national IDs “pending the constitutional amendment for inclusion of the Maragoli in the indigenous communities listed in the Third Schedule of the Constitution”. The need to provide the Maragoli with national IDs was attributed to the challenges they faced in accessing health care, education, employment, as well as birth registration.24 Following consistent lobbying efforts, fuelled by the urgent need of National IDs, NIRA released the formally withheld national IDs in 2018 and 14 members of the Maragoli community were appointed to the Constitutional Review Globalcit, Country report: Uganda, https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/66750/RSC_GLOBALCIT_CR_2020_8.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 19 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. 20 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. 21 Bronwen Manby, Statelessness and Citizenship in the East African Community. UNHCR, (2018), p. 91, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/66807. 22 Johanna Seidl, Quest for citizenship – the story of the Maragoli, (January 2019), http://refugee-rights.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/01/Quest-for-Citizenship-Maragoli-1-1.pdf. 23 Radio One, ‘The ‘Maragoli’ tribe to petition parliament, Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative’, (July 2014), available at: https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/uganda-the-maragoli-tribe-to-petition-parliament/. 24 Ibid. N.33. 18 5