Age Limit Appeal Hearing to start tomorrow

The Supreme Court will Wednesday 14th November begin hearing of the age limit appeals challenging the Mbale constitutional court decision that lifted the 75 years presidential age limit cap.

The Chief Justice Bart Katureebe who is heading a Coram of seven supreme court judges to hear the appeal has warned counsel in the matter saying they should strictly follow rules of procedure or risk having no appeal at all.

Parties challenging the decision of the Mbale constitutional court decision that lifted the age limit of 75 years for presidential candidates will tomorrow begin conferencing before a panel of seven judges led by the chief justice.

These will focus on consolidating the different appeals and agreeing on key issues to be decided by the court.

The chief justice however expressed concern on a seeming the lack of seriousness among the counsels suggesting some may not have filed their appeals in accordance with the law.

The chief justice noted “laxity among counsels will not be allowed because this is court and not theatre and hence you should come in accordance with the law.”

Katureebe added “we have rules governing memorandum of appeal before the supreme court and because rules are clear you can’t just bring anything form the market and bring it as a memorandum of appeal.”

He explained further “a memorandum of appeal should not be argumentative, not leading evidence and not be a narrative. It should just point out what was wrongly decided by the lower court. That’s what should be filed but you file a memorandum of120 paragraphs and so on is making the work of this court difficulty an it’s against the rules and I pray all of you go look at your pleadings by the time we sit tomorrow some of you may find yourselves with no appeal”

He says court intends to strictly abide by the rules and handle the matter with deserving seriousness and called for respect between his coram and the bar

The chief justice and six members of the Coram to hear this appeal were presiding over a miscellaneous application by the attorney general to have the Uganda Law Society scrapped from the appeal after they served him late.

The Attorney General William Byaruhanga told court that even if he had sought that the Uganda Law society be stuck off the case for late service of notice of appeal, considering the importance of the matter, the same should be allowed to continue.

The court agreed with this validating the late service.

Given a go-ahead the Uganda law society president Simon Peter Kinobe says his team stull has to sit and consider their next step since they already got what they wanted from the constitutional court.