Prime
Owiny-Dollo to Museveni: We shall handle poll petition fairly
President Museveni (left) is received by Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga (right) and Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo (centre) as he arrived for the opening of the new law year at High Court in Kampala on Friday. PHOTO/MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI.
Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo has assured president-elect Museveni that the poll petition filed by his rival Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, who is seeking to annul his January 14 victory, will be handled with “utmost fairness” starting this week.
The head of the Judiciary went on to lament before Mr Museveni of how the said poll petition will be heard in a tent due to lack of a spacious courtroom to observe social distancing as a measure to minimise the spread of Covid-19 disease.
“There is a presidential petition that has been filed and a number of people have been taken to court. I know we will selflessly and with utmost fairness handle this petition,” Justice Owiny-Dollo briefed Mr Museveni.
He added: “One thing you [President] need to know, the courtroom for the Supreme Court is fabricated because it was not a normal courtroom. It will not be possible to sit nine justices while following social distancing. So the Supreme Court of Uganda beginning next week for the next 45 days or there about, will sit in a tent to determine a grievance and bring to closure the issue of presidential petition…. in a tent.”
This newspaper understands that the said tent will be erected at one of the hotel premises in Kampala from where the hearing will be conducted.
The Chief Justice was speaking during the opening of the new law year at High Court premises in Kampala on Friday, where the judicial officers take stock of the previous year and make projections for the new law year.
Justice Owiny-Dollo, who is going to lead a panel of nine justices to determine the election petition, did not give more details of the case.
The practice in the Judiciary does not allow discussing a case that is before court as this can bias a judicial officer handling it, legally termed as prejudicial.
Likewise, Mr Museveni remained mute about the petition challenging his re-election but agreed with the Chief Justice that there is need to construct the Judiciary headquarters, which he said is symbolic.
Also at the same function, Justice Owiny-Dollo listed a number of challenges that the institution he is heading faces.
He revealed that the Judiciary is operating with only 47 per cent staff, and tasked President Museveni to cause the appointment of more judicial staff at all levels.
“The entire Judiciary has a paltry total number of 377 judicial officers serving a population projected at 45 million people,” Justice Owiny-Dollo lamented before the President.
“With such glaring manpower gaps, there is no way the people can receive the justice they are entitled to,” he added.
President Museveni agreed with Justice Owiny-Dollo about the dire need to recruit more judicial officers before promising to hire an extra 2000 magistrates to address the staffing gaps.
“The proposal by his lordship to have a Chief Magistrate per district, I totally agree, I don’t see why not if we have all these Gomboola [sub-county] chiefs, why not have enough judicial officers deployed in the country? We can pay 2,000 magistrates, we can plan for that. 2,000 is not too many,” Mr Museveni said amid applause from the judicial officers in attendance.
The Chief Justice also compared the Judiciary with its sister arm of government, the Parliament, saying its budget is three times bigger.
Background
The petition
On Monday last week, Mr Kyagulanyi (pictured) through his lawyers, lodged a presidential election petition challenging Mr Museveni’s victory.
Core to his 26 grounds that he listed to annul Mr Museveni’s victory, Mr Kyagulanyi contends that the Electoral Commission (EC) conducted the January 14 election not in accordance with the law and that this greatly affected the final results.
The leader of Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party now wants Mr Museveni’s win annulled and the EC to hold fresh elections.
On January 28, the EC chairperson, Justice Simon Byabakama, released the final presidential results, indicating that Mr Museveni won the polls with more than six million votes (58 per cent), while Mr Kyagulanyi came in the second position with 3.6 million votes (35 per cent).
In total, there were 11 presidential candidates.
“By way of comparison, the legislature has 426 members, now increased to 520 members in the next Parliament. Added to this are the district and other lower local government councils.
Therefore, the legislature has thousands of members to perform its constitutional mandate. This contrasts very sadly with the 379 judicial officers to carry out equally important and extremely demanding tasks the Judiciary is mandated to do,” he further said.
He, however, informed the judges about other competing priorities like the defence, education, roads and health, saying Uganda is a former failed State that is just being rebuilt and they should work with the resources that they have for now.
