The newly appointed Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka has discovered fraud and laziness among government lawyers.
Last Friday, Kiwanuka summoned lawyers working on cases in the East African Courts of Justice after learning that government lawyers intentionally failed to file defense in certain cases especially ones that involve president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, parliamentary speaker Jacob Oulanyah and the Chief Justice Owiny Dollo.
Sources in the Attorney General's chambers disclosed to theGrapevine that when Kiwanuka summoned these lawyers to his office, he castigated them for being lazy and promoting fraud.
He assured them that during his tenure as the Attorney General, he will not accommodate such behaviors.
The source added that Kiwanuka told them that they must go to court and argue cases instead of sitting in offices and waiting to write legal opinions and government agreements.
Immediately after the meeting, Kiwanuka directed some of these lawyers to ask the regional court to extend time in the matter where controversial lawyer Hassan Male Mabirizi is challenging the appointment of Oulanyah as Speaker of parliament.
He also deployed another them on the case in which Mabirizi is challenging the actions of Chief Justice Dollo when he confiscated Justice Esther Kisakye's file during the presidential hearing in which presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine was challenging president Museveni's victory in the 2021 polls.
In his affidavit to the regional court, Hillary Nathan Ebila, a senior state Attorney admitted that on 13 of April 2021, he was part of the team that handled Oulanyah and Dollo's cases in the regional court but they failed to file a response.
"I know that on the date when the statement of Reference was filed in our Registry, the Registry staff inadvertently placed the file containing the Reference among files that were due for payments of courts awards and compensations. The said file was discovered by the Accounts department who referred it back to the Registry of Civil Litigation for appropriate action," Ebila said.
He added that by the time the file was recovered and returned to the Civil Registry, the time within which to file and serve the response had elapsed.
He said that on 15 of June 2021, they received vital information and instructions from the concerned clients.
He added that unfortunately, they were disrupted by the lockdown declared by the president which banned public transport and private transport.
He pleaded to court to allow the application because of its great public importance to Ugandans and other partner states.
By Sengooba Alirabaki
0 comments:
Post a Comment