The East African Court of Justice has thrown out a case in which lawyer Male Mabirizi sued government over age limit.
The Supreme Court last year in a 4:3 majority judgment dismissed a challenge by three parties who had challenged the constitutional court ruling that had upheld age limit clauses from the constitution by parliament.
In his petition, Mabirizi to the regional court that the several actions, directives and decisions of all the three organs of government including parliament, executive and judiciary in conceptualizing, processing, pursuing and upholding of the age limit amendments was an infringement on the provisions of the East African Community treaty.
On Wednesday, the court ruled that the process of enacting the age limit was properly done within the legal requirements adding that the Supreme Court was right to throw out a challenge against the same.
“The Supreme Court’s judgment was properly placed before the Court, the Reference having been lodged well within that time frame. In so far as this Court is clothed with exclusive jurisdiction over the interpretation of the treaty, the notion that the applicant(Mabirizi) could have (but did not) raise the matters in contention in the reference before the domestic courts in Uganda is untenable” the court ruled.
The East African Court of Justice ruled that the burden lay on Mabirizi to prove his case to the required standard that the judgment of the Supreme Court to uphold the amendment of the age limit was done illegally.
“The applicant bore the legal burden to establish his case as against the respondent to the required standard. The standard of proof applicable to challenges to apex courts' judicial decisions is 'fully conclusive evidence' that demonstrates a clear and notorious injustice that is blatantly evident ‘at a mere glance.”
The court consequently dismissed Mabirizi’s cases with costs to the respondent.
