KAMPALA – Supreme Court has responded to lawyer Hassan Male Mabirizi’s worries over the delayed ruling in the presidential age limit.
In a letter dated March 29, 2019, to Mr. Mabirizi and copied into the Supreme Court Justices, Deputy Registrar of the court, Godfrey Opifeni noted down the reason to why the appeal had not yet been delivered within 60 days as stipulated by the law.
“This is to inform you that the judgment in the said appeal is being processed by justices of the court and at the appropriate time, parties to the appeal will be notified to receive the same,” reads in part the letter.
The letter comes in hardly a day after Mr. Mabirizi filing a complaint at the court registry seeking for an explanation from the Chief Justice, Bart Katureebe why they had not delivered the judgement within the 60 days as provided for under the Uganda Judicial Code of Ethics.
Mr. Mabirizi described the pending judgement as expired threatened to run to International, Continental and Regional courts to question the state of rule of law in the country.
In his letter, Mr. Mabirizi contended that the delay has created loopholes that have been manipulated by some political players like president Museveni who has been declared as a sole presidential candidate for the NRM party yet his candidature is one of the grounds being contested in the appeal.
The renowned outspoken lawyer says that the delayed judgement has frustrated his efforts to get the justice that he has been longing for since the Constitutional court also did the same thing when it delayed the same judgement at Mbale.
Mr. Mabirizi adds that delayed judgement being one of the issues he based his appeal on in the supreme court, it’s like the justices have already made a decision on this issue in the affirmative.
“I am no longer interested in the pending judgement, the only thing I want are reasons from court to why the delay and this is where I will start from to base my complaint to higher jurisdictions,” Mabirizi noted.
The Age-limit appeal judgement has so far delayed for 71 days, the mandatory 60 days having expired on the 16th/March 16. 2019.
The appeal arose from a majority Constitutional court verdict which upheld Constitutional amendments regarding the lifting of a cap from the minimum and maximum presidential age.
Apart from Mabirizi, other appellants were the 6 opposition MPs and the Uganda Law Society
