By Mukose Arnold Anthony.
On August 12, 2024, Justice Douglas Karekona Singiza of the High Court in Kampala delivered a judgment of Miscellaneous Cause 0085 of 2024 in favor of a case filed by a young Ugandan, Daniel Bwette, exonerating the Parliamentary Service Award. This judgment left the camps of the beneficiaries in jubilation.
However, the same judgment has invited questions from other Ugandans who believe that the judge erred both in law and in fact, generating several unanswered questions.
These unanswered questions prompted our reporter to investigate and uncover some facts and secrets behind what some Ugandans claim to be a planned move by the Parliamentary Commission, headed by the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Anita Among.
A highly placed source, who participated in the planning meetings held at Fairway Hotel between May and June 2024, revealed that, the entire suit was stage-managed to frustrate the commissioners’ censure motion spearheaded by Lwemiyaga legislator, Hon. Thedore Ssekikubo.
“Daniel Bwette’s case was stage-managed from the point of identifying the applicant—a young man aged around 25 years who is a close friend of one of the Commissioners from Eastern Uganda—to selecting the lawyers,” our source, whose identity we are withholding, stated.
He says that after Ssekikubo’s motion began gaining momentum, plans to frustrate the entire process took off, prompting to file a judicial review suit.
In simple terms, the Commissioners used the left hand to sue the right hand as a means to block and silence Ugandans opposed to corruption.
“After Hon. Ssekikubo’s motion gaining momentum around May 2024, the Commissioners came up with a plan for someone to file a case against them to defeat Ssekikubo’s motion on the grounds that there was an ongoing case in court, which would prevent the debate on his motion,” our source revealed.
“The meetings used to be held at Fairway Hotel between May and June 2024, but much as I never saw some commissioners and the speaker in person, they used to send representatives with clear messages and instructions to the legal firms that were to represent them.” Our insider further confirms the allegations.
The first thing was to get a cooperative Judge who was supposed to rule that the service award was lawful irrespective of the applicant’s case. Justice Sekaana Musa, who had just flown back to the Country from US where he had gone for vacation, was, according to our source, the first choice.
However, upon Justice Sekaana allegedly briefing Justice Singinza about the plan and the intention of the parties, accepted to take on the task and promised a satisfactory execution of work.
The source also reveals that both the judge and legal firm identification plans took shape concurrently.
“Lawyers and law-firms agreed to secretly handle the matter, and one law firm situated at National Theatre Building (we’re withholding the name because failed to their side of the story) was contacted, agreed to execute the plan but declined to use their address.”
The source further reveals that “another law firm in Wandegeya (name withheld) appeared on the court record and two lawyers (names withheld) attended to the matter when it came up for hearing.” He confirms.
Since the Judge was aware of the whole plan of not disclosing either the law-firm or the lawyers is the reason as to why they can’t be traced anywhere in the Judgment.
The matter in depute was filed towards the end of May but by the second week of June, the hearing was completed. It was only pending Judgement.
He further reveals that, Judge had to delay the Judgment from June on pretext that Hon. Sekikubo had failed to garner the required signatures so there was no need but after realizing that he finally got the signatures, it had to come out as agreed.
In Judicial Review matters, there is a stipulated time of three months by law and in this case, “Service Award” was a 2022 matter which could call for an automatic dismissal of the case, but since it was part of the plan, parties agreed not look into that direction.
The case was to be dismissed without talking about the main application on-grounds of filing a judicial review application out the stipulated time, instead, the judges talked about the legality of the award and avoided revolving time frame, since it would cause an embarrassment to preside over a matter failed out of time.
However, after learning of this syndicate on August 14, 2024, we tried efforts to look for some of the accused commissioners only to fail getting their side of the claims.
One of Personal Assistants to one of the commissioners had this to respond.
“Disregarding the circumstances surrounding the filling of the case and the judges who was allegedly hired to accomplish the mission, did the judge lie about the process of awarding the service award?”
“What about his ruling faulting the clerk, was it part of the plan?”
This defense however, was dismissed by our insider saying it was part of the plan, not to make an open judgement.
“Oyo Clerk jjirikiti okusulibwa embwa enfu, ekyo kisso kyambuzi because, he came in after realizing that the earlier judgment of June was very plain” Our source dismisses the defense
“The judge invited the parties before he could deliver the judgement and that is when they had to insert him but he wasn’t part of the initial issues raised. Ask yourself, if the decision and process are legal as claimed by the judgement, why then the implementer (clerk) be punished?” He further wonders.
He further told our reporter that, the plan was that, the matter should be kept out the public domain because it was to generate public debates and follow all the proceedings hence affecting the whole plan.
“Do you have anywhere on record by media from filling, proceedings up to the judgement day? Ask yourself, who first released the judgment? Why did Mpuuga rush to address the media immediately after circulating the judgment? Our Source points to the reporter what was in the plan.
Judiciary however, dismissed the allegations against the two mentioned judicial officers saying, they work and execute their roles independently without any of the raised false accusations.
When our reporter reached out to H/W Ereemye Jumire James Mawanda, the Judicial Spokesperson, said, whoever is dissatisfied with the decision, can use the available legal avenues to challenge the decision.
“My comment is that we have a decision of court and thus is a public record. Any party dissatisfied with the decision has recourse to available legal processes. Otherwise Judicial Officers are independent arbiters on matters brought before them.” H/W Ereemye said.
“Courts don’t solicit for cases. The public should disregard this malignant statements from whichever source it is.” Ereemye added.
Indeed, Ssekikubo’s journey was cut short and suffered a political Miscarriage after speaker declining and dust binning his efforts to table the motion when she on Friday August 16, 2024 issued guidance over the same by referring to Justice Singiza’s judgement of Misc Cause 85 of 2024.
“All aspects of the motion have been well canvassed in the ruling of court and continuing with the same would not only be an action of legal mootness but also violates the re judicata principle as illustrated in the above decision” reads part of the four page speaker’s guidance.
This guidance response from the partially confirms our source’s allegation of the intention of the said suit which was “to use the judgment to block the tabling and debating of the censure motion.”
Disclaimer: This article and its source aim to answer some of the public’s questions, not to attack any parties mentioned herein.