National Unity Platform’s Robert Kyagulanyi’s petition challenging President Museveni’s victory has suffered yet another setback as the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon dismissed an application to file additional affidavits.
Kyagulanyi filed an application seeking court to give him extra time to file additional affidavits in support of his petition challenging President Museveni’s victory in the January,14 polls saying this would enable court to effectively inquire into the petition and also determine questions raised in the case.
“Allowing the application is in the interest of justice. There are special circumstances we want to present to this court to be considered to allow the application. A number of our witnesses we are to rely on were not released on bail by the General Court Martial as we had anticipated,”Sseggona told court on Friday in reference to a group of 36 NUP supporters including Eddie Mutwe and Nubian Li who were denied bail early this week.
However, the panel of nine justices of the Supreme Court in an 8:1 majority ruling said they could not allow the application.
“By a majority of 8:1, this court disallows this application. Costs will be in the cause but detailed reasons will be in the detailed judgment,” Lady Justice Percy Tuhaise who read the ruling on behalf of the other justices said.
The Friday Supreme Court ruling was yet another setback in Kyagulanyi’s petition after the same court had earlier dismissed another application to file new evidence to the case.
The instant application was very crucial to Kyagulanyi who was the first runner up in the January 14 polls after his lawyers told court that the additional affidavits had evidence to show incidents of ballot stuffing, how results were falsified, bribery incidents and how the independence of the Electoral Commission was compromised in favour of the first respondent(Museveni).
The petitioner will now have to rely on only 53 affidavits to argue their case challenging Museveni’s victory in the January 14 polls.
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