Will MP Zaake case test Katuntu-Lukwago bond?

When Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa referred Mityana Municipality Member of Parliament (MP) Francis Zaake to the Parliamentary Committee of Rules, Discipline and Privileges for supposedly bad-mouthing Rakia Woman MP Juliet Suubi Kinyamatama, in her own constituency, few predicted that it would go down to legal gymnastics.

It is not the first time Zaake has been referred to this committee over alleged abuse. In 2020 Ms Rebecca Kadaga, then Speaker of Parliament, sent him to the committee for allegedly behaving disgracefully during an inquiry into a Makerere University strike. 

The thrust was that Zaake was accused of insulting the Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, when he appeared before the Committee on Education and Sports in November 2019.

The proceedings, superintended by Kalaki County MP Clement Obote Ongalo, didn’t turn into a legal spectacle as it failed to find sufficient evidence to pin Zaake on charges of attempting to physically assault Nawangwe, but all the committee could do was to caution the youthful MP.

In 2022, the MP was found guilty by the committee, now led by Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu, of breach of public trust and parliamentary decorum after he posted on X, then known as Twitter, something that Anita Among, then Deputy Speaker of Parliament, found unpalatable.

Following a recommendation by Katuntu’s committee, Zaake was consequently hounded out from his Commissioner of Parliament office. 

However, this year the Constitutional Court following a petition filed through his lawyers, led by Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, invalidated a parliamentary resolution that dismissed Zaake from his position as a parliamentary commissioner on grounds that Among, who presided over the matter, violated the principles of natural justice by not recusing herself as the complainant.

The justices agreed with Zaake’s legal team that there was no quorum present when the resolution was passed, and the motion had been irregularly added to the order paper. 

Besides this, the justices also noted that Parliament breached its own rules of procedure, and more so, Among acted as a judge in her own case. 

“The question then remains whether waiting for the Speaker [Jacob Oulanyah] who was at the time indisposed to return would have caused the Deputy Speaker or Parliament any prejudice. Definitely not, because the matter had already been investigated by the committee on privileges.

Implementation of the recommendations as well as debate on the motion ought to have been postponed until a person who had no personal interest in the matter was available to preside,” said justices Irene Mulyagonja, Eva Luswata, Oscar Kihika, Muzamiru Mutangula Kibeedi, with Catherine Bamugemereire, being a lone ranger as a dissenter. 

A couple of months after the Constitutional Court ruled in his favour, Zaake is back before Katuntu’s committee to explain if at all he abused Kinyamatama. Only that this time Zaake has decided to attend proceeding with Lukwago as his lawyer.

When Katuntu asked Zaake if the male voice apparently uttering insults at Kinyamatama in a viral recording was his, Lukwago drew first blood, questioning how Katuntu was proceeding.

“The general principle of law, which is applicable in these proceedings, is very clear that he who alleges must prove and all content in that video footage is subject to proof by anyone making allegations without any issue coming out of it independently,” Lukwago said, forcing the Bugweri County MP, who has been a permanent fixture in Parliament since 2001, to retort.

“The general principle is about proving your case, not a fact. What we want to know is whether we are dealing with the correct people. That is why I asked honourable Kinyamatama whether that was her video clip or not. From there, that is when we can start on that process. But if Zaake doesn’t even want to answer, that is also okay,” Katuntu said.

Symbiotic relationship
In the coming months, Katuntu and Lukwago will perhaps get into heated exchanges over Zaake and Kinyamatama, but the two lawyers have for decades had a symbiotic relationship, with each hiring legal services for the other when a crisis emerged.

In this relationship, Lukwago, who had just won the 2006 Kampala Central MP slot after defeating National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) Edward Francis Babu, was the first to represent Katuntu.

This representation came after Katuntu had controversially lost his Bugweri County seat to NRM’s Ali Kirunda Kivejinja.

The Electoral Commission (EC) had declared that Kivejinja, who has since passed on, had polled 17,554 votes with Katuntu getting 16,496 votes.

After securing his parliamentary position, Lukwago filed a petition alleging that Kivejinja’s victory wasn’t only a work of fraud, but it was also a product of State-inspired violence.  

Lukwago, on Katuntu’s behalf, said contrary to Section 19(3) of the Electoral Commission Act, EC had disenfranchised voters by deleting their names from voters register and also denying Katuntu’s registered supporters the right to vote.

To prove this allegation, Lukwago cited Idudi Market polling station where there was no queuing by voters as is required by sub-section (3) of Section 30 of the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA). 

Instead, the presiding officer, Lukwago said, used a roll call system, calling out those voters he chose to call and that, as a result of that unlawful voting procedure, by 2.30pm only 200 voters had cast their votes at that polling station which had some 1,323 registered voters.

“Court is, therefore, satisfied that the provisions of Section 30 (3) of the PEA, 2005, were not followed at least for some period of time at Idudi Market polling station on polling day,” Justice Vincent Musoke-Kibuuka, who has since passed on, ruled before annulling Kivejinja’s victory.  

“The petitioner [Katuntu] has proved to the satisfaction of the court some of the allegations made by him in the petition. The election of the first respondent [Kivejinja] as MP Bugweri County constituency is annulled,” Justice Musoke-Kibuuka ruling, ordering a by-election which Katuntu won in 2007 after garnering 14,704 votes against Kivejinja’s 12,829.

Katuntu’s turn
Katuntu was to return the favour years later when Lukwago left Parliament and was elected Kampala Lord Mayor, but he would soon fallout with the NRM-dominated council.

Seventeen councillors reacted by petitioning Mr Frank Tumwebaze, then minister of Kampala, accusing Lukwago of indiscipline and incompetency, inter-alia.

Tumwebaze, now minister of Agriculture, proceeded by putting together a tribunal led by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire to look into the allegation and perhaps recommend the removal of Lukwago from office.

With the tribunal sitting at Metropole Hotel, in the leafy suburb of Kololo, Lukwago who was adamant that Bamugemereire had found him guilty, refused to first appear and instead dispatched his lawyers who included Busiro East MP Medard Lubega Sseggona, Caleb Alaka, Samuel Muyizzi and Julius Galisonga. 

The lawyers ended up exchanging with Bamugemereire as they demanded to cross-examine then KCCA executive director Jenifer Musisi and the councillors, but the judge wouldn’t agree. 

The councillors being represented by Kiryowa Kiwanuka, now Attorney General, informed both sides to make 15-minute submissions, detailing what they want the tribunal to do before the actual hearing commences. 

However, this didn’t go down well with Sseggona, who stood up to object but Bamugemereire ordered him to return to his seat. 

Lukwago’s lawyers would later storm out of the tribunal after Bamugemereire rejected their request to cross-examine the councillors, claiming she was simply following the rules of natural justice and not civil procedure.

“This is a kangaroo court. There’s no justice here. The good thing is this is not a court of law, we shall wait for them in court such that justice can be done,” Alaka described Bamugemereire’s tribunal.

Lukwago had counted on then High Court judge Vincent Zehurikize to stop the tribunal, but the judge, who went on to retire after this case, rejected the Lord Mayor’s main prayer of stopping the tribunal. 

Lukwago didn’t go away from court empty-handed because Zehurikize repudiated Bamugemereire’s decision not to cross-examine witnesses in her tribunal and ordered that all witnesses that have testified be cross-examined.  

Armed with Zehurikize’s judgement, Lukwago returned to Metropole Hotel to face off with the councillors and Bamugemereire, this time with Katuntu leading his legal team.

Zehurikize’s order meant that Musisi, who had testified earlier before the tribunal, had to return to be grilled by Lukwago’s lawyer, Katuntu, something that set off a spectacle.   

Though Musisi was accusing Lukwago of indiscipline, inter-alia, Katuntu made her read a Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) resolution which had concluded that the KCCA executive director had to be disciplined because of lack of respect for the authority, insubordination, impunity, incompetence, misconduct, and absconding from authority meetings.

Katuntu asked her if she or her staff had attended the authority meeting of September 28, 2012, but the executive director, who at this point was stammering, had no ready answer.

“I didn’t attend the meeting,” Musisi, who in 2018 resigned from her position citing lack of support from her boss President Museveni, said.

As Lukwago had predicted, Bamugemereire’s tribunal, which had members such as lawyers Robert Kirunda, Alfred Okello-Oryem, among others, recommended that Lukwago had a case to answer, having found him guilty of abuse of office. 

After receiving the report, Tumwebaze said a special meeting would be convened within 14 days where Lukwago’s impeachment would be finalised. 

In spite of the fact that High Court had issued an order stopping this meeting, Tumwebaze ignored it and went ahead with the impeachment process.  

Lukwago wasn’t done. He instructed Katuntu to challenge the Electoral Commission’s move to declare a by-election to fill the Kampala Lord Mayor position. 

Katuntu wanted Mr Badru Kiggundu, then EC chairperson, to be sent to civil prison for being in contempt of an order by Justice Yasin Nyanzi that Lukwago was still the Lord Mayor.

Katuntu went on to argue that Kiggundu wilfully disobeyed a court order and was not acting in good faith, therefore, could not take advantage of Section 49 of the EC Act which insulted him from civil proceedings.

Justice Lydia Mugambe had no option but to agree with Katuntu.  

“...as demonstrated from the above; Lukwago has a right to remain in office as Lord Mayor until miscellaneous cause 362 is disposed of by virtue of the interim court order of November 25, 2013, which was upheld by Justice Nyanzi’s ruling of November 2013,” Mugambe ruled in March 2014.

Therefore, Kiggundu’s activities of organising a by-election to, among others, replace Lukwago in the same office before the disposal of miscellaneous cause 362 of 2013 appears to be a violation of Lukwago’s right to remain Lord Mayor as required of the order,” Mugambe added. 

Although Tumwebaze had claimed that the court order, which was served to him by then Makindye West councillor Allan Ssewanyana, wasn’t authentic, Katuntu insisted that was merely a figment of the minister’s imagination.

“I am inclined to agree with Mr Katuntu that the issue of the order served on the minister not being authentic is not true. For, how would the minister or anyone who saw the said order in the meeting verify its authenticity except by checking with the court? This issue will be expanded on under the section on authenticity of the order below,” Mugambe said. 

Later Mugambe trashed the purported impeachment proceedings.

“Moreover, the persons at the meeting included KCCA executive director Jennifer Musisi. In my view, with all due respect, Musisi should have known better than to acquiesce in this violation of a court order, through her continued presence after the Ssewanyana incident. It is also deplorable, therefore, that in furtherance of the violation of the court order, Musisi went on to notify the EC of a vacancy in the Lord Mayor’s office,” Mugambe adjudged.

Nine years after Katuntu secured Lukwago’s historical victory tables have turned. Lukwago has now to face Katuntu to defend Zaake who is seen as a firebrand in the political Opposition.

“We want our people back. The other things are just a waste of time,” Zaake, who was sporting a red beret, said after he appeared before Katuntu’s committee in an apparent reference to Opposition supporters who have been missing since 2019.

History 
Katuntu’s turn.  
Katuntu was to return the favour years later when Lukwago left Parliament and was elected Kampala Lord Mayor, but he would soon fallout with the NRM-dominated council.

Seventeen councillors reacted by petitioning Mr Frank Tumwebaze, then minister of Kampala, accusing Lukwago of indiscipline and incomp-etency, inter-alia.