LAMWO – A local council one court in Atwol ‘A’ village, Padibe Town Council in Lamwo district has fined a man 130,000 Uganda Shillings for eloping with another man’s wife.
Mr Deogratious Latim was charged on Wednesday after the woman’s husband lodged a complaint with the authorities in the area accusing his wife, Paska Adee, a mother of four for living with another man in his house.
Latim was summoned before the local council official court chaired by Michael Owot.
He, however, pleaded with the Local Council court to reduce the fine, arguing that he could not afford it.
Mr Nickson Ogenga, the Secretary Local Council One,
Said Latim was living in the house that Adee’s husband was renting within the town council.
He added that the suspect travelled from Kitgum to Lamwo and stayed with Adee for close to two weeks before the woman’s husband raised concerns.
Despite the several attempts by the local leaders to persuade Adee to go back and live with the father of her children, she insisted that she love the new man in her life.
In 2007, the Constitutional Court scrapped adultery from the Penal Code. In a landmark ruling, the court unanimously said Section 154 of the Penal Code Act, which criminalised adultery, was unconstitutional because it treated men and women differently.
The adultery law prescribed different penalties and remedies for men and women. It pre-supposed that only married men could be aggrieved in case of adultery. An aggrieved husband was compensated with sh600, which later went up to sh1,200, but an aggrieved wife got nothing.
