Ruling NRM members have continued to criticize opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine for castigating courts of law and the judiciary in general yet, they claim, he is a product of the same courts.
Bobi Wine, who came second in the 2021 presidential race, has already started on the process to withdraw his petition from the Supreme Court, citing bias on the side of judges.
He says the Supreme Court bench won’t offer him the justice he sought, and has since opted to run to the public court.
But the NRM and says Bobi Wine has benefited from at least three favorable court decisions, and should have given the Supreme Court a benefit of doubt.
Here are the three decisions they are citing:
Kyadondo East by-election
According to NRM party’s communications director Emmanuel Lumala Dombo, Bobi Wine rise to political prominence was due to a court decision.
“Hon Kyagulanyi became Kyadondo East Member of Parliament through a byelection that was ordered by court. Who tells him that whenever he goes to court he must win?” asked Dombo.
“Court processes have rules and regulations well laid out for one to follow. Therefore Kyagulanyi must have had counsel and advise from his lawyers to appreciate how election petitions are filed and withdrawn from the supreme court.”
In April 2017, the court of Appeal upheld a High Court decision that nullified the election of FDC’s Apollo Kantinti as Kyadondo East MP.
Justices Richard Buteera, Cheborion Balishaki and Paul Mugamba unanimously agreed with High Court Judge Henry Kaweesa that excluding results from scores of polling stations, hence refranchising thousands of voters.
In the by-election court ordered, Bobi Wine won overwhelmingly, and his political journey officially started.
NUP Party
Bobi Wine’s NUP is now the leading opposition political party, after eclipsing FDC.
Yet months before the election, court threw out an application to cancel Bobi Wine’s acquisition of NUP, giving him a vehicle on which to run.
About a week before Bobi Wine’s nomination, Justice Musa Ssekaana of the High Court threw out the said application on procedural grounds.
“This court declines to entertain the application since it was not brought under any known procedure and secondly it was made to avoid the time limit of 3 months within which an application for judicial review should have been brought,” ruled Ssekaana.
“The judicial review guidelines or rules equally provide for locus standi and this would have been the threshold before the applicants would seek to challenge actions of a party. It is an abuse of court process.”
Magere Home Siege
The other court decision the NRM and judiciary say benefited Bobi Wine was a court order that ended a security siege at his home in Magere, Wakiso District.
“Having found, as I do, that the restrictions imposed on the applicant (Kyagulnayi) are unlawful, it is hereby ordered that they are lifted. Consequently, an order for the restoration of the personal liberty of the applicant hereby issued,” ruled Justice Micheal Elubu of the High Court.
“Otherwise his continued detention at his home is illegal and an infringement on his personal liberties.”
