KAMPALA, UGANDA: The High court in Kampala has dismissed the election petition against Kawempe North MP, Muhammad Ssegirinya after the petitioner’s lawyers confirmed that they had not served Ssegirinya with the petition as he was in Kitalya Prison where he had been remanded.
This comes after Electoral Commission (EC) had on Wednesday asked the court to dismiss the election petition against Ssegirinya saying the Kawempe North MP was never served as a respondent in the case, which makes the case bad in law.
“The court ordered that the respondent herein serves the said Ssegirinya Muhammad with notice of presentation of the petition through the officer in charge of the prison who should witness personal service… and the registrar of the court affixes the notice presentation of the petition on the court notice board…That the respondent did not serve the notice of presentation of the petition on the said Ssegirinya Muhammad,” EC’s affidavit reads in part.
Ssegirinya never submitted defence in the main petition owing to the fact that he maintains that he was never served.
Sulaiman Kidandala who was the runner-up in an election dragged Ssegirinya to court claiming that his nomination papers were invalid because he did not have the requisite academic qualifications to contest for a parliamentary seat.
The law requires all persons contesting for a parliamentary seat to have an A-level certificate or its equivalent. But according to Kidandala’s petition, the O level, and A level, academic documents that Ssegirinya presented to the Electoral Commission were forged, which constitutes a crime under the Parliamentary Election Act.
Ssegirinya defeated nine other candidates when he scored 41,197 votes against his closest challenger Kidandala who had 7,512 votes.
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