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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Civil Division High Court Judge Boniface Wamala has dismissed an application by city lawyer Male Mabirizi, for interim orders to stay his arrest for contempt of court. Justice Wamala delivered the verdict on Monday afternoon, saying the application had been overtaken by events since the matter was already determined by an appellant court, where the applicant had sought orders for his temporary release from prison.
He said this amounted to an abuse of the court process. On February 17th 2022, Mabirizi filed an application seeking to stay his conviction and subsequent sentence to 18 months in jail by the Civil Division High Court Judge Musa Ssekaana, for using his social media platforms to attack and abuse judicial officers.
The decision on February 15th 2022 came barely a month after the same judge issued a strong warning to Mabirizi to desist from attacking judicial officers after condemning him to pay a fine of Shillings 300 million.
Unhappy with the decision, Mabirizi decided to file an application for an interim stay of execution on grounds that he had filed an application seeking to set aside the entire ruling of Ssekaana. He said that there was a serious threat of his arrest and imprisonment before this case could be heard.
He noted that his application would lose meaning if the court doesn’t grant his prayers for the interim orders, adding that he would suffer substantial loss because there was an imminent danger to arrest him. Mabirizi’s main argument was that he wasn’t accorded a fair hearing before Ssekaana arrived at the decision to imprison him.
He argued that he was summoned to appear before the court a day towards the hearing of his appeal against Age limit removal where he appeared with Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka and nine other State Attorneys. He said he was thus unable to defend himself in the shortest time he had been given to appear.
According to Mabirizi, prior to the summons that resulted in his arrest and subsequent committal to civil prison, he had filed other applications asking Justice Ssekaana to recuse himself from hearing the case but he didn’t fix it. Mabirizi says that Ssekaana only hurried to fix a case of the Attorney General, which came days after he had filed his.
He also amended his application and asked for his interim release since he is already in Kitalya Min Max Prison. When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, State Attorney Hillary Nathan Ebila asked the court to dismiss it on grounds that it was an abuse of the court. He explained that a similar matter was already decided by the Court of Appeal Justices Christopher Izama Madrama who dismissed it for having been overtaken by events.
Wamala dismissed the application, saying that Mabirizi’s application sought to stay the decision to arrest him yet it had already been implemented. Mabirizi was arrested on February 21st 2022 from Kyambogo University Banda gate after spending seven days in a hideout. Justice Wamala noted that Mabirizi asked the Court of Appeal on February 22, 2022 for his temporary release in vain.
The now is now pending before a panel of three justices. He therefore noted that there is no way he can intervene in a case that is pending in a superior court. He has now set 3pm to hear an application for a temporary stay of execution and the entire decision by Ssekaana at 3pm.
While presiding over at the opening of the New Law Year 2022 last month, the Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo indicated that they had resolved in their 23rd Annual Judges Conference not to take lightly cases of advocates and litigants who attack judicial officers in the course of executing their duties.
The Chief Justice wondered why a Judge would make a decision and some people start criticizing his genitals, saying when you undress Judges and they remain naked, they are most likely to run into hiding, adding that when the devil goes on a rampage, one might need somewhere to find salvage. According to Owiny-Dollo, the Judiciary is like a forest where one can hide and therefore it should never be attacked.
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