The Court of Appeal in Kampala has set Thursday as the day to decide on three consolidated applications arising from an appeal challenging the victory of Wakayima Hannington Nsereko Musoke as Nansana Municipality Member of Parliament.
A panel of three Judges comprised of Deputy Chief Justice Richard Buteera, Catherine Bamugemereire, and Hellen Obura have fixed the date after hearing from both parties.
The three applications arise from an appeal in which Wakayima’s rival Hamis Musoke Walusimbi is challenging the September 22 2021 High Court decision by Lady Justice Henrietta Wolayo that upheld his victory and ruled that he has the prerequisite academic documents to be in Parliament.
But Walusimbi appealed against the ruling on grounds that Wakayima had name discrepancies on several documents including the National IDs, Passport, PLE documents among others.
He added that the judge erred in fact when she held that Wakayima swore a deed poll which legally made him adopt the academic documents in the name of Musoke Hannington.
The Electoral Commission through its lawyers led by Hamidu Lugoloobi and Wakayima’s lawyers led by Richard Latigo filed an application seeking the court to dismiss the appeal on grounds that it was filed out of the stipulated 14 days that are provided for in law.
They have asked the court to strike it off from the Court record with costs.
Walusimbi also filed an application seeking the court to extend the time within which to file an appeal.
Walusimbi argues that it was an oversight by his lawyers not to file the necessary documents in court within the stipulated time and therefore that shouldn’t be blamed on him.
“However, the applicant’s lawyers made an oversight and treated the appeal as normal Civil Appeals and did not file a memorandum of appeal and record of appeal in the timelines set by the Electoral Laws “, reads Walusimbi’s application.
Walusimbi also attributes the delay to the Court staff saying that they rejected his documents on grounds that they cannot be filed separately at different intervals and allegedly rejected any explanations that he gave them.
The Electoral Commission declared Wakayima of the National Unity Platform as the winner of Nansana Municipality Parliamentary election with 67,862 votes while Walusimbi garnered 744 votes.
The Court of Appeal justices have also informed Court that they will be delivering Judgement on notice in the case where Edgar Lubadde is challenging a High Court decision that upheld the victory of NUP’s Paul Nsubuga as the Busiro North MP.
Lubadde wants the Court of Appeal to nullify Nsubuga’s victory on grounds that he lacks academic qualifications to be in Parliament because he is well known to him as Peter Mukalazi whose traceable academic journey stops at Primary seven.
But Lubadde believes that Nsubuga presented documents belonging to a different person called Nsubuga and he was accordingly nominated and declared the winner on papers that do not belong to him.
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