Supreme Court to hear age limit appeal today
Court session. The panel of judges during the age limit appeal at the Supreme Court. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI
The Supreme Court today will begin its two-day summary hearing of the age limit appeal that is seeking to quash the judgment of the Constitutional Court that upheld the amendment of the Constitution to scrap the presidential age limit clauses 102(b).
A seven-judge panel led by Chief Justice Bart Katureebe is expected to hear from the appellants and the government side represented by the Attorney General.
Today’s business will see court giving each of the three appellants an hour to highlight sections of their written submissions to the justices.
The appellants include Uganda Law Society, six Opposition MPs and lawyer Male Mabirizi.
The justices will in turn ask the appellants/respondents to make any clarifications in areas that are not clear to them.
“All the parties have put in their written submissions and the justices are ready to hear from them starting today,” Mr Solomon Muyita, the Judiciary’s senior communications officer, said yesterday by telephone.
“We call upon the general public to remain home and follow the proceedings from their TV sets since there is limited space at the Supreme Court to accommodate many people. We shall only accommodate the parties, their counsel and a selected section of the media,” Mr Muyita added.
On the bench
The other justices on the panel are Stella Bart Katureebe
The justices are expected to conclude the hearing of the appeal tomorrow and thereafter retire to write their final judgment.
As the practice has been, the judgment date will be on notice.
On July 26 last year, the Constitutional Court sitting in Mbale District, in a majority decision of 4:1, upheld the scrapping of the presidential age limit clauses from the Constitution by Parliament.
However, in a unanimous decision, the same court struck down the extension of the term of the current Parliament and local councils by two years.
The appellant want the Supreme Court to quash the Constitutional Court decision and have the presidential age limit clause of 102(b) reinstated in the Constitution.
Before the amendment of the Constitution by 317 MPs, President Museveni would not be eligible for re-election in 2021 on account of being aged above 75 but he is now eligible to contest if he wishes since the barriers were done away with by Parliament last year.
