The Judicial Service Commission has said it has started investigating the conduct of Chief Justice, Alfonse Owiny Dollo in handling the 2021 election petition by National Unity Platform’s Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine.
Lawyer Male Mabirizi early this week started the process seeking to remove Dollo from office over alleged misconduct and incompetence and the process started with a petition to the Judicial Service Commission, a body mandated to recruit judicial officers and regulate their conduct.
However, in a response to Mabirizi, the Judicial Service Commission has said it has kicked off investigations into the allegations tabled by the maverick lawyer.
“We acknowledge receipt of your complaint against the above-mentioned judicial officers. The purpose of this letter, therefore, is to inform you that investigations have commenced and we will revert to you on the way forward as soon as investigations are completed,” a March, 11, 2021 letter by Judicial Service Commission Permanent Secretary, Julius Mwebembezi.
In his petition, Mabirizi told the Judicial Service Commission that Chief Justice, Alfonse Owiny Dollo conducted himself in a manner that exhibited misbehavior and incompetence when he refused to heed to a request to recuse himself from the Kyagulanyi petition despite being a former advocate for President Museveni who is a respondent in the instant petition.
“Even when I wrote to him on the 12th for his recusal, he again presided over another application before determining the recusal application. On February 23, 2021, he dismissed the recusal application without any reason,” Mabirizi says in his petition.
The lawyer avers that whereas he filed an application seeking to stay all proceedings in the election petition by Kyagulanyi, the Chief Justice never shared the same with his fellow justices on the panel.
“He refused to fix it, yet later on the same day, he fixed that for withdrawal of the petition which was heard and granted on March,5, 2021 in pendency of my stay application.”
“Owiny Dollo is a time bomb to Uganda because he has turned Supreme Court into a judicial deals house where justice is perverted through fraudulent and illogical actions and decisions thereby defeating Uganda People’s interests and aspirations.”