How the abuse of police (or judicial) power undermines the presumption of innocence

Let me tell you a story about the abuse of power. More than twenty years ago, two young men were out having drinks at a pub in Kampala. At around 10pm they decided to retire home. They paid their bill but as they neared the exit a reveller sitting at a table near the exit jumped at one of the two men, call him Yanga A, and demanded that he return his mobile phone.

Yanga A was taken aback. ‘What mobile phone,’ he asked? “The mobile phone that was here on the table,” the reveller belched. The table was almost two metres away from the pathway; Yanga A would have had to walk to the…