Spire, Kampala International University and the Expensive Business of Speaking Truth to Power

There is something revealing about the way institutions respond when people beneath them complain. What matters is who is complaining, how many people can hear it, and whether the institution has the resources to make the complaint considerably more expensive.

The dispute between Spire and Kampala International University has wandered into strange territory. What began, according to Spire’s account, as grievances from people associated with the university has become a legal battle over defamation, injunctions and contempt, and now public fundraising.

Last year, people associated with KIU reportedly started sending complaints to Spire. He amplified them. KIU responded with a defamation suit. High Court Registrar Kintu Simon Zirintusa issued a temporary injunction restraining Spire from publishing what was described as unsubstantiated information about the university.

Spire says the injunction was issued before he knew of the suit. He appealed immediately, but the appeal has yet to be heard. Injunctions can outlive the urgency that produced them. When the challenge remains unheard, the temporary can acquire the characteristics of the permanent. The legal dispute moves slowly; the prohibition does not.

Then came a more personal complaint. Spire raised the case of his nephews, who had paid fees to KIU but did not attend. According to his account, the university declined to refund or transfer the fees, despite what he says were provisions in its refund policy.

KIU returned to court, arguing that he had breached the injunction. The registrar found Spire in contempt and ordered a Shs10m fine, Shs20m in damages to KIU and costs, or civil imprisonment. Spire appealed and sought a stay of execution. On August 6, the stay was denied.

Then something unusual happened. Ugandans began raising money to pay the penalty. The target was reached, but people continued sending money. Contributions reportedly came in amounts as small as Shs4,000, from opposition and NRM supporters, ministers and ordinary citizens, at home and abroad.

For many who contributed, the issue was less whether Spire could pay than whether somebody should have to pay so much for speaking about an institution. KIU has legitimate interests in protecting its reputation. Courts must enforce their orders. But at what point does protecting reputation produce a chilling effect on public criticism? When does an injunction against unsubstantiated claims discourage substantiated ones too? When does speaking become so expensive that silence becomes the more economical option?

These are not abstract questions in Uganda. A university has lawyers. Government has lawyers. The ordinary citizen generally has a WhatsApp group and a cousin who once studied law.

The imbalance is stark when the complaint is about money. You pay an institution. Something goes wrong. You raise the issue. The institution says your criticism has harmed it. The dispute enters the legal system. Suddenly the original amount becomes incidental beside the cost of challenging the institution. You began with a grievance about money. You end up fundraising to defend your right to raise it.

The public response has crossed political boundaries. Uganda is often described through its divisions: NRM and opposition, tribe and tribe, government and civil society. But underneath are people who understand what happens when institutions become too powerful to answer questions. They may disagree about the person asking, but not necessarily about the right to ask.

Spire himself put it plainly when thanking contributors: “It is not me they carry though, it is the cause”. The real test of a society’s commitment to free expression is what happens to the obscure person without a platform: the student, patient, employee or citizen who complains about an institution.

Most do not have thousands of followers or prominent lawyers. They cannot turn a legal penalty into a national conversation. When they watch what happens to someone who can, they learn the price.

This is how freedom of expression can be diminished without anyone formally abolishing it. You do not need to ban speech. You can make its consequences sufficiently burdensome that people censor themselves. The lawyer’s letter will do. The injunction will do. The damages claim will do. The prospect of contempt will do. Eventually the citizen asks: Is this worth it? If the answer is no, the silence that follows can look remarkably like consent.

This is why the judiciary occupies such an important position. Courts must protect people and institutions from defamatory falsehoods and enforce their orders. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from legal accountability. But a court order does not end at the courthouse. It tells citizens not only what the law permits but what the law might cost. The danger is not simply that Spire might be silenced. It is that somebody else decides never to speak at all.

There is an additional irony because the institution at the centre of the dispute is a university. Universities are supposed to be places where inconvenient questions are encouraged, arguments tested and assumptions placed under uncomfortable examination. Yet this dispute is partly about whether asking questions about the institution can itself become legally perilous. It would be an excellent subject for a seminar. Preferably one with very good lawyers in attendance.

Perhaps this is where the case touches something deeper in Uganda’s institutional culture. The country has no shortage of powerful organisations. What it has struggled with is making them answerable. Accountability is usually somebody asking about a missing payment, unexplained decision or unanswered complaint. These questions are not revolutionary. They are merely irritating.

The fundraising around Spire has become an unlikely referendum on something larger. Contributions continued after the target had been reached, suggesting people were contributing to a principle: not that Spire should be immune from the law, but that ordinary criticism should not become so expensive that only the wealthy can afford it.

Democracy is not simply the periodic opportunity to choose who governs. It is the continuous ability to question what those who govern, administer, educate, employ and regulate are doing. A society in which institutions can never be criticised is one in which people have learnt not to complain. The most effective gag on public speech may not be a prohibition at all, but an invoice.

The Temple of Justice is supposed to be where the weak go when the powerful have failed them, where money, influence and institutional muscle surrender to evidence, law and principle. But the citizen must be able to enter the temple without wondering whether he can afford the exit.

That is what makes the Spire-KIU dispute worth watching. Not because Spire is above the law. He is not. Not because KIU is above criticism. It should not be. And not because every allegation made in public argument is automatically true. It plainly is not. Somewhere between those propositions lies the fragile territory on which public accountability depends: the ability to question, to challenge, to say: This happened. Please explain.

Perhaps we should be asking what happens to everybody else when they see the bill. Freedom of speech rarely disappears in one dramatic moment. It tends to go quietly. One injunction at a time. One lawsuit at a time. One frightened citizen at a time. And eventually everyone discovers that the public square is still there. It is simply empty.

Featured Photo: Internet Photo