Buganda Road Chief Magistrate’s court has granted embattled lawyer Male Mabirizi mandatory bail after finding that he had spent more than the constitutionally prescribed 60 days on remand without his trial commencing.Chief magistrate Ritah Neumbe Kidasa, in a ruling delivered on Friday, ordered Mabirizi to pay a cash bail of Shs 2 million. He was also required to provide two substantial sureties, each holding a valid national identity card, who will execute a non-cash bond of Shs 5 million. The court further directed Mabirizi, through his sureties, to provide details of his permanent place of abode for verification by a court-appointed officer. He was also ordered to deposit his passport with court and barred from leaving Uganda without written permission until the case is concluded.However, Mabirizi told court that he does not have a passport and intends to challenge the requirement or write to the ministry of Internal Affairs to confirm that he has none. As a result, he was unable to leave prison on Friday despite being granted bail.The magistrate further directed Mabirizi not to directly or indirectly interfere with prosecution witnesses and ordered him to attend court in person on every date fixed for mention or hearing.The court warned that failure to comply with the conditions could lead to cancellation of his bail. Kidasa based the mandatory bail decision on Article 23(6) of the Constitution and Section 76 of the Magistrates Courts Act, which provide for the release on bail of an accused person who has spent more than 60 days on remand before trial, except in specified circumstances.The court noted that Mabirizi had been in custody since February 3, 2026, initially in connection with a separate criminal case, and that his period on remand had exceeded the statutory threshold by a considerable margin.Kidasa said the court had no discretion to withhold mandatory bail once the constitutional and statutory conditions had been met.Court declines to dismiss caseHowever, the magistrate rejected Mabirizi’s application to have the current criminal case dismissed for want of prosecution.Kidasa said criminal proceedings are conducted by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), rather than the complainants, and that the complainants’ absence from mention hearings did not, on its own, amount to want of prosecution.Mabirizi is facing three charges arising from TikTok publications targeting Chief Justice Flavian Zeija and Court of Appeal and Constitutional court Justice Musa Ssekaana, whom he allegedly described as corrupt and fraudsters.He was initially charged in February under the Computer Misuse Act with hate speech and malicious information.That case was withdrawn on April 1, 2026, after the Constitutional Court declared the provisions of the Computer Misuse Act under which he had been charged null and void because of procedural defects in their enactment.Prosecution immediately filed the current case under the Uganda Communications Act and the Uganda Communications (Licensing) Regulations, 2019. The new case contains two counts of publishing fake news and one count of broadcasting without a licence.Mabirizi challenged the charges on several grounds, including jurisdiction, the applicability of the Communications Act to TikTok, freedom of expression, vagueness of the charges and the validity of the 2019 licensing regulations.The magistrate, however, dismissed the objections, holding that none provided sufficient grounds to stop the case from proceeding to trial. The court also rejected Mabirizi’s plea of double jeopardy.Proceedings moved to chambersIn a separate direction issued alongside the ruling, the chief magistrate ordered that further proceedings in the case be conducted in chambers.The court cited sustained social media commentary surrounding the case, including what it described as personalised attacks against judicial and prosecutorial officers and the complainants.Kidasa said the volume and nature of the commentary had created an environment that could compromise the fairness and orderly conduct of the proceedings. She said the chambers arrangement was temporary and could be reviewed by the court or upon application by either party.The court clarified that the direction does not prevent access to the official court record or rulings and judgments delivered in the case.Charges against MabiriziAccording to the prosecution, Mabirizi, during January 2026, allegedly used his TikTok account, @male.mabirizi, accessed through Airtel Uganda’s telecommunications network, to publish an audio-visual news story concerning Chief Justice Zeija.Prosecution alleges that Mabirizi described Zeija as a “conman”, “fraudster” and “corrupt” and made other allegations concerning his appointment and alleged bribery.He is also accused of publishing another audio-visual story in which he allegedly described Justice Ssekaana as a “conman” and “fraudster”, statements prosecution says were false.Mabirizi is further accused of broadcasting through his TikTok account without a licence issued by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). The lawyer’s latest case is not his first confrontation with the judiciary.On January 27, 2022, Justice Ssekaana, then head of the High Court Civil Division, ordered Mabirizi to pay Shs 300 million for contempt of court after he posted social media attacks against Justice Phillip Odoki.The attacks followed Odoki’s dismissal of Mabirizi’s application seeking to restrain the Capital Markets Authority from extending the MTN initial public offering window and listing shares on the Uganda Securities Exchange, citing incorporation-related issues.The post Court grants Mabirizi mandatory bail after 60 days on remand appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.