Whether bride-price means different things in different cultures of Uganda such that the Constitutional Court cannot make a uniform interpretation of the custom. (c) Mr. Rwakafuzi contended that bride-price as a custom applies to all Uganda and has been judicially recognized. He cited S. 55 of the Evidence Act to the effect that a matter which is judicially noticed need not be proved. He maintained that it is practiced by all cultures in Uganda and that it has been judicially noticed in various parts of Uganda and therefore it is not necessary to prove it. The respondents, however, argued that bride price has not attained judicial recognition because judicial notice is a process which requires evidence of matters being so notorious that it is judicially recognized. A custom has to be proved as being so notorious that it has to be judicially recognized but it is not for counsel so to state. Mr. Kakuru submitted that customary law has to be proved and must first pass the repugnant test under 15 of the Judicature Act. The petitioners should have gone to the High Court to challenge the custom in a civil suit, first. It is trite that a party who alleges a custom has to prove it. The rule is to be strictly adhered to even in cases where the custom as alleged is neither unique nor unknown especially when he alleges that it is at variance with the superior law of the land. I would therefore disagree with Mr. Rwakafuzi that the custom of bride-price needs no proof. Customs must be proved in the first instance by calling witnesses acquainted with them until the particular customs become so notorious that the courts take judicial notice of them, without the necessity of proof in each individual case. It becomes, in the end, as Mr. Kakuru very aptly put it, truly a matter of process and pleading. – See the Evidence Act (Cap 6) Section 46. Judges must reach the decision to accept a custom on legal evidence. They cannot import knowledge from other sources like was trying to persuade the court to do. – Also see Sarkar on Evidence. 12th Edition, page 577. It is only by recognition of the custom by way of court decisions that entitles it to judicial notice and not otherwise. I would thus agree with the respondents that the custom of paying / giving bride-price has to be proved first since they keep on changing with the times. As to whether there can be uniformity of the custom of bride-price, it is a fact that Uganda’s diverse tribal make up has each tribe subscribing to its own culture that has been passed on from generation to another. This means therefore that there are quite a number of cultural practices concerning marriage in Uganda. While a given practice might mean so much to a certain society it may be a violation of human rights to another. Thus, while it would be considered a denigration, an insult to the dignity and worth of a Muganda bride to leave her parents’ home for marriage without ‘a mutwalo’ (bride-price) having been paid / given to her parents, a bride from another region might herald it as the epitome of civilization and liberation, an achievement for her in that she has not been haggled over and sold into marriage like any chattel in a market place. It is vital to note that ‘mutwalo’ ‘price’ is merely symbolic. It could be in the form of rare and intrinsically valuable items like ‘a nsaamu’, which is an engraved wooden hammer for making ‘back-cloth’, a very old hoe ‘a kasimo’ or 15