No 2021 election job for Supreme Court?

Supreme Court becomes irrelevant

Still, many political analysts question the rationale of going to the Supreme Court since in 2001, 2006 and 2016 the majority ruling of the judges was that as much there had been some election irregularities, they could not substantively affect the final winning margin to warrant overturning the result.

Seasoned Constitutional lawyer, Peter Walubiri told The Independent that the real problem lies in the Supreme Court’s insistence on the substantiality claim.

“The Supreme Court has to redefine the concept of substantial effect,” Walubiri argues.

He says: “The concept should not be pegged to proof that the votes of the candidates would have been different, which is a tall order. Rather emphasis should be on the quality of the election. If there are no conditions or freedom and fairness in the whole electoral process, then that election is not the quality envisaged in the Constitution and should be set aside.”

In a publication titled `Towards a New Judicature in Uganda: From Reluctant Guards to Centurions and Constitutionalism in Uganda at Crossroads’, Walubiri argues that “the courts in Uganda should go beyond being guards of the law to being centurions”.

“I warned in a publication in 1998 that if the Courts do not adopt jurisprudence to give life to the constitution and to protect rights and freedoms, then they would become irrelevant, and the people would exercise judicial power directly. We are moving nearer to that date,” he told The Independent.

According to Walubiri the matter is not for the presidential candidates but for the people of Uganda who are oppressed and cheated to refuse illegitimate rulers.

“A critical mass of disaffected people using a combination of several non-violent means can overwhelm the dictatorship,” says Walubiri.

Another legal brain, Isaac Ssemakadde, told The Independent that “essentially, the Uganda Supreme Court is powerless when it comes to deciding cases involving General Museveni’s political fate.

“Currently all the justices of the Supreme Court were appointed by General Museveni through the most opaque and arcane procedures, and they do not represent the finest legal brains of this country in this moment. So, it is not really an impartial and competent tribunal, but rather a motley crew of partisans and ideologues, who were selected based on political affiliation, and who can and will put their ideology/party before any quest for justice in a presidential election petition.”

Ssemakadde bases his argument on the verdicts that have always been given in the previous three presidential election petitions two of which were filed by opposition strongman Kizza Besigye in 2001 and 2006 and another by Museveni’s former premier John Patrick Amama Mbabazi in 2016.

“So, we can’t even expect any split decision along ideological or party lines that were evident in the two Besigye vs Museveni debacles of 2001 and 2006. They are General Museveni’s judges and it is General Museveni’s court. It’s as simple as that. Even Hitler, Mugabe, Gaddafi and the Apartheid Boers had judges and courts that they fully owned.

“The Supreme Court in Uganda is not really an impartial and competent tribunal, but rather a motley crew of partisans and ideologues, who were selected based on political affiliation, and who can and will put their ideology/party before any quest for justice in a presidential election petition,” said Ssemakadde.

Uganda’s Electoral Commission which oversaw the now contested presidential election continues to urge all aggrieved candidates from the January 14 presidential and parliamentary election to seek redress in courts of law. According to its spokesperson, Paul Bukenya, the electoral process was “transparent from start to finish and Museveni won convincingly”.

****