Court okays election of Bunyole East MP
NRM’s Bunyole East MP Moses Musamba Nagwomu
What you need to know:
- The Court of Appeal justices also concurred with the trial judge of the High Court Andrew Bashaiji for expunging the affidavits by Mutembuli’s supporters in support of the petition.
- The judges ordered Mutembuli to pay costs of the petition in both the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
KAMPALA. The Court of Appeal has upheld the election of NRM’s Bunyole East MP Moses Musamba Nagwomu.
The Democratic Party’s Yusuf Mutembuli petitioned the High Court in Mbale District challenging the election of Nagwomu for alleged lack of the requisite academic qualifications. The High Court dismissed his petition for lack of merit.
He appealed to the Court of Appeal but three justices of the court upheld the High Court verdict and dismissed Mutembuli’s appeal with costs.
The three-judge panel was led by Justice Kenneth Kakuru, assisted by Justice Egonda Ntende and Justice Elizabeth Musoke.
In their ruling read by the court’s Deputy Registrar Deo Nzeyimana, the judges unanimously agreed that the appeal had no merit.
“Although Mutembuli was accusing Musamba of having used his cousin’s O-Level transcript with different names, the burden of proof in election petition cases lies on the petitioner. Mutembuli never proved his case since the respondent claimed to have added his father’s name as the third name and the appellant never brought the alleged owner of the certificate in court,” the justices observed.
The justices also faulted Mutembuli for failure to produce vote results from polling stations which were allegedly tampered with and to prove their impact on the election outcome.
The Court of Appeal justices also concurred with the trial judge of the High Court Andrew Bashaiji for expunging the affidavits by Mutembuli’s supporters in support of the petition.
The judges also dismissed Mutembuli’s allegation of non-compliance with the electoral laws. They said his claims were based on hearsay evidence from his supporters which were never corroborated.
In his appeal Mutembuli had accused the Mbale High court judge of wrongly rejecting 86 affidavits of his supporters which had evidence to prove his allegations against Nagwomu. He said the judge’s wrong action affected the fate of his petition. Mutembuli had also claimed that the judge had failed to evaluate evidence on properly and therefore reached a wrong conclusion.
The judges ordered Mutembuli to pay costs of the petition in both the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
