MBALE – Justice Kenneth Kakuru has become the first judge to rule that the entire Amendment Act (Age limit) was unconstitutional and must be expunged from the constitution.
Delivering the ruling at around 7.05pm Justice Kakuru ruled that the constitutional amendment process was unfair.
“I find that amendment of term limits was in contravention of article 93 of the constitution, was not debated by the committee, was not debated by people of Uganda and I find its passing was unconstitutional,” he ruled.
He added that the two months given to the MPs to consult all Ugandans were not be enough and that the group of people consulted was not representative enough to cause amendment of the constitution.
“Views of 22 individuals, eight government agencies and ministries were represented before the committee. The rest appear to be a group of obscure Ugandans. With all due respect, the members of the committee to suggest the above people represent the views of Ugandans is absurd. …Therefore, our democracy includes the principle of participatory. Therefore, the question is, was there public participation? Parliament has a duty to promote and uphold it. In the subjective test, the members of the committee took on an insignificant number of people and said they represented public participation,”
He also condemned the manner in which police invaded the House. He also ruled that the actions of police and army manhandling MPs was unconstitutional.
“What the Speaker should have done was to adjourn the House. I find that there’s no evidence the army would not have come to Parliament the way they did. The actions of the MPs prior to the proceedings called for the intervention of police The police must uphold the dignity of citizens. Police in Uganda has no right to frogmarch Ugandans which we routinely see them doing. The attorney general must ensure that this stops.”
Earlier, Justices Cheborion Barishaki and Elizabeth Musoke had quashed sections of the constitutional amendment act in which MPs extended their tenure of office from five to seven years.
The two explained that expanding the term of MPs and Local Government officials was smuggled into the bill without consulting the people.
Justice Remmy Kasule is now reading his judgement.
More details to follow……………..
