The Court of Appeal has dismissed an election appeal filed by Hamis Musoke Walusimbi who was seeking to overturn the victory of Nansana Municipality Member of Parliament Hannington Nsereko Wakayima Musoke.
Walusimbi had taken Wakayima to the Appeals court, claiming that he did not the required academic documents while the name discrepancies on several of his documents meant that did not qualify to be a Member of Parliament.
But justices Richard Buteera (Deputy Chief Justice), Catherine Bamugemereire and Irene Esther Mulyagonja on Thursday, 24 March 2022 dismissed the appeal, arguing that it was filed outside the stipulated 14 days.
Walusimbi had asked the court for an extension on grounds that he was misled by the Court Registry staff that an appeal has to be filed together with a notice of appeal and record of proceedings from the High Court.
But Justice Bamugemereire, who read the ruling on behalf of the panel, said the there is no way a junior staff of court could have misled Walusimbi’s lawyers.
According to the judges, Walusimbi ought to have done due diligence on the lawyers, saying that considering the delay and time taken to file the appeal, it looked like Walusimbi had not intended to proceed up to the Court of Appeal.
They dismissed the case with costs for having been an abuse of the court process. Walusimbi was being represented by lawyers Abbas Bukenya, and Kabuye Twaha Haruna.
Wakayima’s lawyer Richard Latigo welcomed the decision, saying that he is going to demand heavy costs from Walusimbi on grounds that way back when he was first brought to the Court of Appeal, he lost a case and paid more than Shs200 million in costs.
Wakayima of the National Unity Platform-NUP party garnered 67,862 votes in the January 2021 election while Walusimbi got 744 votes.
Walusimbi then dragged Wakayima to the High Court, saying the latter did not the requisite academic documents to be a Member of Parliament.
But Lady Justice Henrietta Wolayo upheld Wakayima’s victory.
But Walusimbi proceeded to the Court of Appeal claiming that Wakayima had name discrepancies on several documents including the National IDs, Passport, PLE documents among others.
