Report on Citizenship Law: Uganda This process has been slow moving and the status of the Maragoli community is still pending. In February of 2016 the Attorney General issued an official statement to the NIRA characterizing the “legal interpretation of the citizenship status of the Maragoli Community” and informing that the Chairman of the Maragoli Community that their inclusion in the Third Schedule of the Constitution was to be handled only through a constitutional amendment, and further directed NIRA to issue national identification cards given the “pending constitutional amendment for inclusion of the Maragoli as one of the indigenous communities”. 43 The immediate need to issue nationals IDs was attributed to the challenges faced by the Maragoli community in accessing services such as land leases, health care, education, employment opportunities, as well as in some cases, the ability to register child births.44 Following the Attorney General’s advice, the Maragoli community still continued to struggle in obtaining National IDs and filed a complaint with NIRA in August 2016. They also complained to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the Attorney General’s office following prolonged administrative issues in accessing the above-stated services. As a result, the MIA raised this issue with NIRA, and it was resolved that the Government of Uganda would accept the Maragoli claim to Ugandan citizenship and their inclusion in the Third Schedule of the Constitution.45 Despite the positive developments, it was reported in May of 2017, that the NIRA was still withholding an estimated 15,000 national IDs from the Maragoli.46 This led to their writing to the President of Uganda, H.E. Yoweri Museveni who responded by instructing the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs to include the proposed constitutional amendment. Further efforts included a petition to the Equal Opportunity Commission, who mobilized local government officials in Masindi District to host a public dialogue about this issue in March 2018, in addition to a nationality workshop hosted by the International Refugee Rights Initiative47 in which this issue was raised. By mid-2018, NIRA released the formally withheld national IDs during the 2014/15 mass registration drive, and by November 2018 fourteen members were appointed to the Constitutional Review Commission in order to review the Maragoli case.48 Despite the perseverance of this particular community in their citizenship claims, it is imperative to equally acknowledge that they are other minority groups who while less vocal, also face the same circumstances.49 43 Maragoli Petition to Attorney-General of Uganda, 22 December 2015. (Accessed 18 December 2018). http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Maragoli-petition-to-AG-Uganda-2015responses.pdf 44 The International Refugee Rights Initiative, A Quest for Citizenship: the Maragoli, 23 January 2019. http://refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Quest-for-Citizenship-Maragoli-1-1.pdf (accessed 08 February 2019). 45 Ibid. 46 The Observer (Kampala), Uganda: NIRA Withholds 15,000 National IDs of Maragoli Tribe. https://allafrica.com/stories/201705250122.html (accessed 08 February 2019). 47 International Refugee Rights Initiative, Summary of IRRI Hosted Workshop on the AU Draft Protocol on the Right to a Nationality, 2018. http://refugee-rights.org/irri-hosts-meeting-in-kampala-on-the-draft-protocol-onthe-right-to-a-nationality/ (accessed 08 February 2019). 48 The International Refugee Rights Initiative, A Quest for Citizenship: the Maragoli, 23 January 2019. http://refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Quest-for-Citizenship-Maragoli-1-1.pdf (accessed 08 February 2019). 49 The complexities in defining Uganda's ‘indigeneity' in relation to both its colonial past and its contemporary post-independence era is an underlying issue on a cross-sector of the area defining its current public policies. see further: The 2013 Uganda National Land Policy has a more inclusive definition for minority groups which are left out of the Third Schedule of the 1995 Constitution. Uganda National Land Policy, Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, 2013, http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/uga163420.pdf RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/8 - © 2020 Author 13