EVIDENCE: Lawyer Mabirizi tables truck full of evidence in age limit appeal

Lawyer Male Mabirizi Kiwanuka has officially filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the age limit judgment by the Constitutional Court last month.

The Constitutional Court sitting in Mbale in July upheld the amendment of article 102(b) to lift the minimum and maximum age limit from the constitution.

On Monday, almost three weeks after the Constitutional Court ruling, the youthful lawyer who represented himself during the petition filed an appeal with the Supreme Court registrar Godfrey Anguandia Opifemi.

“I have spent 17 days and nights trying to put together evidence which amounts to 30896 pages contained in 150 booklets, Mabirizi said.

Riding on the back of a mini truck full of his evidence, the lawyer jumped off before he began carrying the voluminous booklets to the office of the Supreme Court registrar.

Four of the five Justices of the Constitutional Court including Alphonse Owiny Dollo, Cheborion Barishaki, Elizabeth Musoke and Remmy Kasule upheld the amendment of the constitution to lift the age limit saying it was done in accordance with the constitution.

Justice Remmy Kasule in his judgment said that there is no backing in the constitution that states that when a president clocks 75 years of age, he must vacate office adding that ages comes to different bodies differently.

“The Odoki Committee itself didn’t find the AgeLimit of the President as one of the critical pillars of the constitution to be entrenched. Accordingly, I find that the Amendment of article 102(b) doesn’t contravene the constitution,” Justice Kasule ruled.

“If we have fixed the minimum age, we don’t need to consider the maximum, the electorates will decide.”

The judges however unanimously annulled the extension of the term of office for legislators from five to seven years saying it was not done in accordance with the constitution.

The no nonsense Justice Kenneth Kakuru described the legislators as being selfish when they unlawfully extended their tenure from five to seven years.

“If we go by what happened, it would mean that parliament would every five years extend its terms without holding an election and this is what Idi Amin did by declaring himself life president and parliament,”Kakuru ruled.

Justice Barishaki noted, “These were unprecedented amendments through which people ought to have been consulted. Extending the term parliament and amounted to a flagrant breach of social contract.”

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Mabirizi said he was not contented with the Constitutional Court that ruled it was wrong for Members of Parliament to extend their term to seven years but the same court upheld the amendment of article 102(b) to lift the minimum and maximum age limit from the constitution.

“The president assents only one signature to the entire act .The entire act therefore needed a referendum and not only the part of extending the term of office for MPs,”Mabirizi said.

In his appeal, the lawyer argues that the court also erred in law when it failed to summon the speaker of parliament to explain her role in the chaos at parliament during the age limit debate last year.

Inconvenience

Mabirizi in his appeal argues that the Constitutional Court sitting in Mbale erred when it failed to declare that he was inconvenienced during the age limit debate when he was stopped and almost arrested as he tried to access parliament to follow proceedings.

He says court ought to have found that many other people were inconvenienced in a similar manner during the debate.

“I want damages for the inconvenience caused to me .I had requested for the damages in the petition but the justices of the Constitutional Court didn’t consider it. I want the Supreme Court to address it,”Mabirizi told journalists.

He said he would be hoping for the matter to be expedited by the Supreme Court it is keeping Ugandans in suspense.

“I will now wait for the court to assign a panel of seven judges and after the pretrial, I will be ready for the main case.”