Opposition appeals to Judiciary to stay firm

Wafula Oguttu

PARLIAMENT.

The opposition has urged the Judiciary to ensure the Executive does not ignore its decisions.
“When a judge makes a decision and the Executive ignores or undermines it, the Judiciary should make its position clear,” Mr Wafula Oguttu, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, said yesterday during a press conference at Parliament.
“We appeal to the Judiciary to pronounce itself on the on-going election arrangement for the Lord Mayor of Kampala, which is in disregard of a High Court order.”

His comments come a week after the Electoral Commission (EC) said it would organise an election to “fill the post of the Lord Mayor”.
High Court Judge Yasin Nyanzi, however, on November 28, 2013, nullified the censure vote, ruling that an injunction had already been granted to Erias Lukwago, staying the implementation of the tribunal report that recommended his ouster because of alleged incompetence.

Before the application is dispensed with, Mr Lukwago is still the Lord Mayor even though police time after time blocks him from accessing his office at City Hall.
Mr Oguttu said the EC has a duty to abide by and to execute lawful orders.
“What is itching us is the fact that the EC in total disregard of all the above is now organising an election of a new Lord Mayor. This is fraud. It is a case of intolerance of the civil servants managing the Kampala Capital City Authority and the EC. They find comfort in being used by Mr Museveni as tools of entrenchment of a dictatorship and impunity. This must stop,” said Mr Oguttu.

Mr Oguttu said the opposition is going to engage “relentlessly in legal battles, public action and diplomatic lobbying to end the NRM’s fascist tendencies”.