Former Supreme Court Judge George William Kanyeihamba has said the drama that ensued on Thursday at the Supreme Court, is confirmatory signature to former presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi’s argument that Uganda’s Courts of law are full of NRM cadre judges.
During the ruling in the withdrawal of an election petition which had been filed by Kyagulanyi, the Supreme court judge, Esther Kisakye clashed with the Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo where the former accused the latter of confiscating her file containing her dissenting judgement in the case in which Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine challenged the presidential elections of January 14th.
She added that the CJ had refused her to read the ruling alluding that other members of the panel had to the first debate on it.
“That my ruling would be read at a later date…Probably after he and the other members had finished to debate about it. I found that order unconstitutional and I chose to disobey it. When I was appointed as a judge of this court in 2009, I swore to uphold the constitution of Uganda and I also took a judicial oath and I’m m acting based on those undertakings I made. I felt it is my constitutional duty to disobey the unlawful orders of the chief justice and fulfil my duty as a member of this quorum to deliver my decision within the 45 days under Article 104,” she said.
While commenting about the incident, Justice Kanyeihamba said what happened at the Supreme Court was a shame to Uganda’s House of justice.
Every judge in the panel is supposed to be independent. The Chief Justice cannot direct them, they can differ and there is no way the CJ can force them to agree together. However, if it’s true that the Chief Justice withdrew the file of his colleague before she could read the ruling, it’s really unfortunate,” Kanyeihamba said during an interview with a local media outlet on Friday.
“This was an automatic confirmation that some judges are cadres who want to pass judgments one way to presumably please a certain group of people against the justice of others which is an unfortunate incident. This is very wrong and this is the most shameful thing to ever happen to Uganda.”
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