Lawyers warn leaders for meddling in land dispute ruling

Lawyers have warned leaders in Serere District against meddling in an already decided court matter over a 150 acres piece of land.
The land was being claimed by the Serere District Local Government and Mr Moses Omiat.
However, in June last year, the Soroti High Court ruled that the land belonged to Mr Omiat.
In a press statement released on Monday, the lawyers, who work with Kania & Alli Advocates & Solicitors and represented Mr Omiat in the case, accused the Serere District LCV chairperson, Mr Stephen Ochola, and the deputy Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr Ivan Namoma, of spreading harmful information about the concluded land case.
 “In a widely circulated broadcast, the said LCV chairperson of Serere District made baseless and unsubstantiated allegations that the Soroti High Court judge was unfair and biased in arriving at his judgement in Soroti High Court Civil Suit No. 10 of 2016: Omiat Moses versus Serere District Local Government and four others when he decreed that 150 acres of customary land at Kasilo Village, Kamod Parish, Bugondo Sub-county, Serere District belongs to our client,” the statement reads in part.
It added: “At odds with the judgment, he falsely alleged that our client’s land belongs to Serere District Local Government and the trespassers who are unlawfully occupying it. He further asserted that the evidence that proves the trespassers’ ancestral ownership of our client’s land is the alleged existence of over 100-year-old graves on the land. None of this is true as the land neither belongs to the trespassers nor do they have 100-year-old graves on it.”
During the ruling last year, the presiding judge, Justice Henry Adonyo, fined Serere District Local Government Shs320m in legal costs and for the destruction of trees on the contested piece of land.
Not happy
However, almost a year later, Mr Omiat claims several top district local government officials have denied him access to the land and continue to trespass on it.
When contacted, Mr Ochola said the district has lodged an appeal against the High Court judgment and they are waiting on the outcome. He said courts of law are not always right. 
“I grew up when everybody was telling us that the land is for the county headquarters and I don’t think whatever court says can change what I had been told,” Mr Ochola said in a telephone interview on Monday.
He added: “Court can give its ruling and it does not mean that everything courts give is always right. That is why you find that in some judgments, a lower court can give a judgment and then the higher court can over turn it.”
When contacted, Mr Namoma briefly said: “Do those who want to take people to court go to [Daily] Monitor? So if you want to take someone to court, you don’t go to [Daily] Monitor.”