Mbabazi loses rallies case against EC top officials
Presidential aspirant Amama Mbabazi talks to his supporters after he was released from Kira road police on July 9 2015. Mbabazi was arrested at Njeru town on Kampala- Jinja highway on the way to Mbale for his first consultative meeting. File Photo
KAMPALA.
The High Court in Kampala on Wednesday threw out with costs a case in which a concerned citizen had sued four top officials of the Independent Electoral Commission in their personal capacity for having illegally blocked rallies that were being held by Presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi in the Eastern part of the Country.
While delivering his ruling, Justice Stephen Musota held that the petitioner Mr Charles Nsubuga jumped the queue by rushing to his court instead of first lodging his complaint before the Commission as the law demands.
The Electoral Commission Act demands that it’s only after the Commission has failed to settle the complaint when court can be petitioned.
The four top officials that had been sued were; the chairperson, Eng Badru Kiggundu, Mr Jotham Taremwa (spokesperson), Sam Rwakoojo (secretary) and Paul Bukenya (deputy spokesperson).
“The purpose of the Electoral Commission Act was to keep such complaints at a management level so that they don’t escalate into bigger complaints. Jumping the queue would be rendering the EC incompetent…” ruled the judge.
“Had this matter been properly filed, this court would have heard it as calls for enforcing fundamental human rights. However, I find that this application is not properly filed before this court, it’s bad in law, incompetent and unattainable and if the applicant (Mr Nsubuga) so wishes, should file his compliant before the Commission against the respondents (Kiggundu and group)...” added the judge
“This application is struck out with costs to the respondents, I so order……r”
Turning on the issue of bad faith that was allegedly exhibited by the electoral commission officials in making statements branding Mbabazi’s Eastern region rallies as illegal before police breaking them, the judge ruled that acts of bad faith were not pleaded by Mr Nsubuga in his plaint as the law demands.
To that effect, the judge also threw out this plea raised by Mr Nsubuga.
Shortly after the ruling, John Mary Mugisha, one of the lawyers who represented the petitioner asked justice Musota for leave to appeal against his ruling, saying his client was dissatisfied.
Justice Musota asked lawyer Mugisha to make his application formally.
Core to Mr Nsubuga’s cause of legal action was that the EC officials had deliberately acted outside the law by knowingly committing acts of illegality and abuse of office, resulting in the violation of the rights of Ugandans vying for political office.
He added that the statements that were made by the EC officials were contrary to the Constitution, Electoral Commission Act and Presidential Elections Act 2005 and he was seeking court’s orders to bar them.
At the height of Mbabazi’s countrywide consultative meetings in Eastern districts of Jinja and Soroti, the police boss Gen Kale Kayihura in conjunction with the EC officials, wrote to Mbabazi campaign team, stopping him from holding countrywide consultative meetings meant to promote his presidential bid.
The police violently broke Mbabazi’s consultative meetings in those two respective districts.
Kiggundu and other EC officials claimed Mbabazi had broken the law because his consultative meetings in Eastern Uganda had turned into public rallies and processions which was not acceptable since the campaign period was still closed.
But Mbabazi and his legal team argued that the law does not provide for the number of people to participate in the presidential consultative meetings and that also the type of venue where to hold those meetings is not specified.
