Student Blog Entry: Matsiko Godwin Muhwezi on RIchard Hooker

It is no mean feat to analyse Richard Hooker’s political philosophy as set out in the Law of Ecclesiastical Polity because it is marred with a lot of paradox. He seems to jump from one opinion to a blanket stereotype of its context as if he does not want to take sides. That is what makes it hard to infer the relevance of his philosophy into contemporary Uganda.

When Hooker posits that nature itself teaches laws and statutes to live by, what rings a bell is that since he was greatly influenced by Aristotle, he is a disciple of the natural school of law. On this sort of queue there is not much relevance because with the Constitution as the supreme law of Uganda and the parliament as the chief promulgator, we lean more to the positivist side.

Yet still, if I take his presupposition literally, Hooker suggests that in nature there are laws that extend to us by some sort of osmosis and become second nature. This assertion accounts for the humongous public support for the Anti-Gay (Bahati) Bill of 2009 and the recent anti-Mabira give away movement. The vehemence with which Ugandans unite for such movements despite our ethnic disparities speaks volumes on how nature influences our politics.

Hooker’s Commonweal philosophy is also one that has to be taken with a pinch of salt. He writes that civil society fulfils the nature of man more than any private kind of solitary living. By this he suggests that man is always craving for fellowship and this can be seen in the string of kingdoms that Uganda had long before colonialism. It is however simplistic to assume that with a commonwealth it is always bliss. In Ankole for example the people rejected the reinstatement of their former kingdom because of the inhuman treatment they had suffered against the tyrant kings such as having the king’s spear rest in a human foot!

Another problematic aspect of Hooker’s political philosophy is his classification of the law. He rightly categorises primary laws as those grounded upon sincere nature and secondary laws as those based on the depraved nature. He however abstains from submitting on the contents of the Law of nations. In contemporary Uganda, there is a web of international law seeping its way into our jurisprudence. This for example consists of the green revolution which has given birth to our environmental law. Since it is not easy to distance the law of nations from the law of war and since the primary law such as that of embassage is patronised by political and economic interests, his classification of the law is wanting in a way.
I also find it hard to comprehend the notion that we always consent to the laws that exist. Hooker writes that only wise men should be admitted to law making, that we assent to the laws through our predecessors. Not only is it questionable that our legislators fall into the intellectual ambit that Hooker contemplated but also whether we consent to the directives from sovereign authority. The army of Uganda is wrought with arbitrary legislations and the array of torture cases that are disguised in anti-terrorism legislation leave a lot to be desired.

Furthermore, hooker is unconvincing when he says that laws never change without reason and that such a reason never comes by because the source code remains. This does not even register in the biblical context. For example when Jesus was asked about divorce in the Law of Moses, he said that such a law was merely an accommodation of the callous hearts of the Israelites but that the threshold had since risen. In our political environment, when political ambitions change, laws follow suit and this is clearly evident in the amendment of our Constitution to remove term limits and adopt a multi-party system.

Lastly, Hooker’s advocacy for Ecclesiastical polity has failed to be reflected in Uganda. He writes that the church as a society should adopt Councils General for administrative purposes independent of secular government like the earlier Apostles did. In the Roman Catholic Church there is a semblance of this but that is all there is. Just as his philosophy caused problems with Queen Elizabeth 1 in her capacity as the then head of the Church of England, today the Anglican Church is called the Church of Uganda and enjoys extreme patronage such as when Bishops get cars from the government on their inauguration. It is therefore not a breather to attempt at creating a divide between church and state. After all, with Hooker’s latitudinarian approach, the law has to ultimately be obeyed whether evil or sacred and so even in Uganda our secular law takes precedence over church polity of any sort.