Mabirizi petitions principal judge over delayed hearing of applications

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Lawyer Male Mabirizi has petitioned the Principal Judge Dr. Flavian Zeija seeking answers why his applications have not been fixed for hearing.

On February 15, 2022, the High Court Civil Division Judge Musa Ssekaana found Mabirizi guilty of contempt of court for allegedly attacking judicial officers using his social media platforms and subsequently sent him to prison to serve 18 months. Ssekaana had earlier on January 27, ordered Mabirizi to pay a fine of 300 Million Shillings for the same offence.

The second conviction followed an application filed by Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka pointing out that Mabirizi used the same platform to belittle Justice Ssekaana that he was biased, incompetent, and unable to head the smallest court of a family. He further noted that Mabirizi had described the 300 million Shillings fine that was issued against him by Ssekaana as null and void, a statement which he said was tantamount to an attack on the Judiciary.

The Attorney General through the Assistant Commissioner of Litigation, Patricia Mutesi asked the court to find Mabirizi guilty of contempt of court and be committed to civil prison.

However, Mabirizi filed several applications among others seeking to quash the decision by Ssekaana and restore his freedom temporarily.

Justice Ssekaana was the first to be allocated the files but he recused himself from the case on February 25 and the files were again taken to Justice Boniface Wamala who also heard a few applications seeking to temporarily halt the implementation of Ssekaana’s decision and dismissed them with costs.

This was on grounds that the applications were overtaken by events since Mabirizi was already arrested.

But Wamala last week recused himself from hearing the main case where Mabirizi wants to set aside the decision to jail him without giving him a right to be heard.

Mabirizi later filed other applications seeking to reinstate those that had been dismissed earlier and another challenging President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s appointments of government officials in different positions but the cases are all not yet heard.

In a petition dated April 19, 2022, addressed to the Principal Judge, Mabirizi states that the applications were all bundled together and kept before Ssekaana and to date, they have never been fixed for hearing.

“However it has come to my knowledge that they were all bundled together and kept somewhere in Judge Ssekaana Musa’s chambers with the effect of the same not being fixed and heard yet as you are aware, judicial review matters must be determined within 90 days”, reads the petition.

It adds that, “this is the typical political judicial persecution I have always stated to be practiced by the judiciary against me. Why can 10 interlocutory applications be separated from the mother file? How can a judicial review application spend almost 90 days without a hearing date? I am I not part of the people entitled to a fair and speedy hearing?”

The Principal Judge is yet to respond to Mabirizi’s demands.

This is not the first time that Mabirizi is petitioning the Principal Judge. In February 2022 while on the run, he petitioned the Principal Judge to allocate his applications to another Judge but not Ssekaana whom he accuses of bias and incompetency.

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