16 election petitions remain unresolved

As the 2021-2026 election cycle comes to a close, there are 16 undecided election petitions both at the High Court and Court of Appeal.

The petitions that have been in the justice system for more than two years include those for Members of Parliament, and local government leaders.

The Chief Registrar of the Courts of Judicature, Ms Sarah Langa Siu, last Friday said despite the current pending cases, all the petitions that were filed shortly after the 2021 general polls, were handled within the set time lines.

“In terms of the electoral justice or petitions, we have a number of cases that are currently pending but for starters, we must clearly start by stating that this time round, as far as the last elections 2021 were concerned, all the petitions that were filed were handled within the time and even the appeals that went to the Court of Appeal were really handled in record time,”
She added: “In essence, by the time we closed the Financial Year 2021/2022, the Court of Appeal had concluded handling of all the election petitions appeals that had been filed.”

Ms Langa said some of the petitions went up to the last court in determining the parliamentary and local council elections (the Court of Appeal) but the justices ordered their retrial at the High Court.

“And once those retrials were ordered, the Principal Judge had again to allocate judges to go and handle those matters and a number have been concluded and some again the appeals are back to the Court of Appeal and that’s why you have eight matters pending in the Court of Appeal,”

Section 63 (3) of the Parliamentary Elections Act, provides that an election petition should be heard and determined within six months from the date of filing.

With the 16 undecided election petitions, it means that some politicians could be in office illegally. 

Judiciary records show that 104 election petitions were filed across the country challenging the election of MPs and 49 petitions for those in the local governments. 

There was only one presidential election petition filed by Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, who challenged the victory of incumbent President Museveni. He, however, withdrew the petition. 

Hearing of the other election petitions were held in May and June 2021. 

Ms Langa said all the  petitions  at the Court of Appeal are due for hearing at a session yet to be fixed before the end of this financial year.

She said those at the High Court are at different levels of hearing, with some pending ruling and judgments. 

Last month, the Electoral Commission released the road map leading to the 2026 general polls with focus on early preparations and adequate funding for all activities.

In the road map, updating the voters’ register will be carried out in January 2025, presidential nominations will be held from October 2 to 3, 2025 and the elections will be held between January 12 and February 9, 2026.  

About petitions
Pending petitions at the High Court
The Judiciary Public Relations Officer Justice James Ereemye Mawanda said the High Court has four election petitions, which arose as a result of retrial orders by the Court of Appeal.

“All the petitions that were in the last election cycle were handled in the record time but because people had a right to appeal to the Court of Appeal, five of them were sent down for retrial and out of the five, two are still under hearing and the other three are pending fixing of the hearing dates,” he said.

He said according to statistics, those that were in the Court of Appeal were 10 and three more applications were filed. “The nature of these matters as we speak now should definitely have already gone under trial but because of the complexity of the cases, the parties involved often times whenever these hearings are fixed, then there are issues with the nonattendance of the plaintiffs and their advocates, so the courts have been constrained ,” he said.

He added: “But we believe that now the judges are back on their stations, they should be focusing on ensuring that the cycle doesn’t find these cases still pending.”