High Court stays hearing of UGX 10Bn MPs case

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The High Court has stayed the hearing of an application challenging the process leading to the allocation of 10 billion Shillings to Members of Parliament for Covid-19 activities.

On Tuesday, the head of Civil Division Justice Michael Elubu stayed the application filed by Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga and his Erute South Counterpart Jonathan Odur pending the determination of a similar case that is before the Constitutional Court.

The petition that is pending before the Constitutional Court was filed by two concerned citizens Prosper Busingye and Grace Tushemeriwe. They are seeking a declaration that the process leading to the allocation of 10 billion shillings to the MPs was illegal and in violation of the parliamentary rules of procedure as well as the constitution.

However, in his ruling, Justice Elubu has noted that although the case before the Constitutional Court was filed by different parties, it arises out of the same case and thus the need to halt the High Court proceedings since the constitution has supremacy over any law in the country.

He added that any question of interpretation of the same in regards to the actions of Parliament would therefore take precedence in the said circumstances.

Elubu explained that this is being done to avoid any inconsistencies in their decisions as the outcome of the Constitutional Court has a direct bearing on all the questions raised in the case of MPs Karuhanga and Odur.

“To avoid any inconsistency in decisions, it would appear most prudent to await the outcome of constitutional petition number 4 of 2020 before determining the instant application”, said Elubu.

In April, Karuhanga and Odur dragged the Parliamentary Commission and the Attorney General to the High Court challenging the procedure leading to the allocation of 10 billion shillings meant for Covid-19 activities.

Through their lawyers of AF Mpanga and Company Advocates, the duo told the court that parliament breached its rules of procedure when it smuggled the money into the Budget Committee report without the consent of MPs.

The Shillings 10 billion is part of the 304 billion Shillings supplementary budget approved by parliament on April 4th, 2020 for Covid-19 activities. Each MP received about 20 million Shillings before the High Court ordered them to refund the money.

However, the two MPs argue that parliament deducted the Shillings 10 billion from the Health Ministry and Security budget to disburse it to the MPs to conduct Covi-d19 sensitization activities using flawed procedures.

But before this matter could be determined, the Attorney General requested that it is stayed until the determination of a similar matter before the Constitutional court hence today’s ruling that has been read by the Court Registrar Dr Alex Mushabe on behalf of the Judge.

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