The bureau's spokesperson, John Namalenga, agreed that for instance, the 48-hour rule for suspects to know the offense after being arrested, is always respected for the people with names in the society.

"It is indeed true that a person who has a private legal representation benefits a little more than anyone else who doesn't have a legal representation in court, even when they have been arrested. And in these instances, it includes when someone has been arrested by the police, they need to know why they have been arrested with 48 hours," Namalenga said.

Namalenga said to bridge the gap, the bureau has opened 21 district offices and distributed mobile phones in police stations to call a toll-free line within five minutes of an arrest to access free legal representation.

He said, "we have installed toll free lines in the majority of police stations for the suspects to call us after five minutes of the arrest so that we can represent them."

Meanwhile, National Police Spokesperson, Peter Kalaya, while expressing commitment to work professionally and respect human rights, said they have in recent times registered any complaint on that.

"As police, we are custodians of human rights among other mandates that we have. We know that some quarters of the society complain about the police not respecting human rights, but in recent years we have not received any complaint that a suspect is staying long in our cells," Kalaya said.

Kalaya has added that people should come forth to relevant authorities in police stations to lodge complains in case of rights violations.

Recently, some stakeholders including the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) also lamented on human rights violations such as shrinking civic space.