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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Makerere University has asked the High Court in Kampala to give it more time to respond to a suit challenging the new directive that altered the guild presidential election process.
The directive issued on April 27, by the dean of students Winifred Kabumbuli requiring contestants in the ongoing election process to resubmit their academic documents for a re-verification exercise was challenged last week by one of the contestants Judith Nalukwago, over its illegality.
According to the directive, Kabumbuli said all contestants shall be registered as continuing students of 2019/2020, and will have to submit their academic documents for all the previous semesters showing that they are either on normal progress or have no pending retakes for the academic year 2019/2020.
But Nalukwago who wants to contest on the National Unity Platform-NUP party ticket was not satisfied with the new directive that came ahead of the elections that were scheduled for Friday this week.
Nalukwago decided to petition the High Court arguing that if the re-verification exercise goes ahead, some students will be verified based on their performance of three semesters while others will be re-verified on two semesters, which is unfair since some colleges didn’t do recess exams while others did following the closure of the University to mitigate effects of Covid-19. The evidence on the court record shows that Nalukwago had previously been verified and issued a certificate to participate in the race before the COVID-19 lockdown.
Nalukwago also argued that if the University considers last semester’s results for re-verification, it means that some students will not participate in elections as voters because they didn’t do last semester exams and others have retakes.
On Tuesday, while appearing before the Deputy head of Civil Division of High Court Justice Emmanuel Baguma, the University through its lawyers led by Esther Kabinga asked for more time arguing that they were busy handling the application that sought for an interim injunction and didn’t get enough time to respond to the main case. There was an interim injunction issued on Friday last week restraining Makerere University from disqualifying Nalukwago or setting aside her certificate of academic standing until this main case is determined.
The Judge has now given the University up to tomorrow to make a response and return to court next week on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, for the ruling.
Earlier, the court proceedings didn’t go on well with Kabinga after the Judge asked her two basic questions of which she failed to answer.
Kabinga was for instance asked when the University is set to conduct the elections and how many candidates have been duly nominated but she was not sure, which prompted the Judge to describe her as vague saying that as an internal lawyer for the University, she was expected to know.
But Kabinga tried to defend herself saying since yesterday, she hasn’t been able to know whether the University has made changes or not but eight students wanted to be nominated and only four had concluded the exercise fully. On elections, Kabinga said she remembered that the elections were also set for this week but hadn’t been briefed if there is any change.
URN understands that the grant of more time has come when the University has fixed this Friday to conduct its 86th guild elections.
But asked if the case will not be overtaken by events since it’s fixed for next week, Nalukwago’s lawyer Henry Byansi said that it will depend on the court decision. If it’s in their favour, Byansi explains that the court may quash the elections that will have been conducted this Friday for not being held in conformity with the guiding laws.
Nalukwago has also revealed that she is not scared about the elections but she aims to set a precedent for future guild elections.
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