Judiciary to issue new guidelines on poll petitions tomorrow

The Judiciary is set to issue new guidelines tomorrow on how to effectively and swiftly dispose of the overdue 109 parliamentary election petitions.

The Chief Registrar of the Courts of Judicature, Ms Sarah Langa Siu, said the issuance of the new guidelines follows the end of the 42-day lockdown which was aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.

“We are going to release the new guidelines on Tuesday [tomorrow] on how we shall be handling the election petitions. We were awaiting the President’s address to inform our next move,” she said.

Earlier this year, the hearing of the parliamentary election petitions suffered its first setback due to delayed release of funds.
In May, the Judiciary secured about Shs1.2b to hear the poll disputes, but the process suffered other setbacks including the imposing of the inter-district travel ban and later the 42-day lockdown.

Last week, the Judiciary hinted at hearing the election poll disputes virtually if President Museveni hadn’t eased the lockdown if they were to avert the looming constitutional crisis of the six months in which parliamentary election polls should be heard and determined.

Records show that there are 104 election petitions filed in courts across the country.
Likewise, there are 49 election petitions filed in local government council pending hearing.

The last parliamentary election petition was filed on March 19. This means that the last election disputes should be out of the High Court latest September 19.

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

It further states in Section 63 (2), that once the hearing of an election petition starts, the judgment should be passed within 30 days. 

However, the law provides for extension of the hearing period if there are unique circumstances that demand so.