Several top legal minds have accused the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) of inconsistent application of legal due process.
This is grounded in the delayed pronouncement of the JSC on two complaints addressed to it in March 2021 against Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo by former presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi and legal activist Male Mabirizi.
In separate petitions, the two accuse Owiny-Dollo of misbehaviour and incompetence arising from his handling of the 2021 presidential election petition by Kyagulanyi.
This comes in the wake of the JSC’s quick expedition of a much later complaint related to the presidential petition, to which Owiny-Dollo referred Justice Esther Kisaakye.
Human rights lawyer Eron Kiiza said the quick expedition of Dollo’s petition against Kisaakye looked like the JSC was on a witch-hunt against Kisaakye.
“Several complaints about different judicial officers have been brought to the JSC, but the cases have died there. It is only Justice Kisaakye’s case that the JSC seems to have handled almost to the end. You can smell in a cup of coffee that Kisaakye is being crucified for something.”
Like Kiiza, human rights lawyer Ivan Bwowe said it was absurd that the JSC was selectively handling cases.
“The rules of natural justice recommend that the person gets a fair and immediate hearing. It is unfair for a case to be expedited at the expense of other cases that were brought before the commission earlier. I cannot explain the urgency of her case,” Bwowe said.
Following the dramatic fallout between Owiny-Dollo and Justice Kisaakye during the ruling of the presidential petition on March 18, 2021, one of the litigants, Male Mabirizi, petitioned the JSC to investigate Owiny-Dollo for gross misconduct on March 19, 2021.
Recounting the events of March 18, 2021, Mabirizi’s petition read in part, “… instead of resumption of court, through a multitude of his personal police guards, armed with cocked AK-47 rifles, he took Supreme court Justice Dr Esther Kisaakye, hostage in the court tent where she had come to deliver her decision and confiscated her court file ‘to prevent her from doing her constitutional duty.
On his orders, the Supreme court registrar ordered that the justice be closed out of court facilities; she abandoned her in court and ordered the disconnection of the court light and communication system to prevent her from delivering the reasons for her decisions. Being a female justice speaks volumes about Owiny-Dollo’s disregard of Article 33 of the Constitution on the Rights of Women,” the petition read in part.
On March 25, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu filed a second petition against Owiny-Dollo. Kyagulanyi accused Dollo of improper conduct, abuse of office, and maladministration of justice. In the petition, Kyagulanyi accused Dollo of ignoring claims that their key witnesses in the petition were being abducted, offering preferential treatment to Museveni, yet Kyagulanyi had been denied the same treatment, etc.
Dollo’s actions and comments, according to Kyagulanyi, manifested bias and prejudice and were misleading. On April 6, the chief justice also petitioned the JSC to complain about Justice Kisaakye. However, the JSC has failed to make a report on the findings on Dollo.
The two justices have been at loggerheads since March 18, 2021, when Kisaakye was blocked from reading her dissenting ruling in a presidential election petition. Justice Kisaakye lashed out at Owiny-Dollo for sabotaging her ruling. Meanwhile, The Observer has obtained documents which show that there could have been a conspiracy to frame Justice Kisaakye.
In one internal memo Dollo sent to Kisaakye on January 19, 2022, he refused to grant her leave request on, among several grounds, that by the time the leave request reached his office on December 23, 2021, he had already gone for his annual leave.
Dollo further inquired about Kisaakye’s medical condition and extended leave of absence while also noting that she requested 182 days instead of the 36 days of annual leave per annum.
In a separate memo, Pius Bigirimana, the secretary to the Judiciary, wrote to Dollo on June 29, 2022, following up on a tip-off from a Daily Monitor journalist who asked whether Bigirimana was paying salary to Dr. Kisaakye when she was not working.
“I am writing to request that you, as her supervisor, confirm whether Justice Kisaakye has been out of office with a leave of absence from duty,” requested Bigirimana. The following day, Dollo replied, noting that Justice Kisaakye obtained leave in April 2021 to travel to the USA for medical attention, and she reported in writing in September 2021 that she had returned to the country.
“She has, however, never reported for work and has never sought a leave grant from my office. She alone can explain this strange behavior. I should also let you take note of the fact that the matter of her prolonged and unexplained absence is with the Judicial Service Commission upon their expressing interest therein,” he said.
On February 8, 2023, the JSC recommended to President Museveni that he remove Justice Kisaakye from the office of the Supreme court to allow investigations into her alleged misconduct.
“The commission is of the considered opinion that a prima facie case has been established through this inquiry of probable grounds of misbehavior or misconduct on the part of Hon. Lady Justice Dr. Kisaakye,” reads part of the report.
“Justice Kisaakye, being a Justice of the Supreme Court, the commission recommends that the President appoint a tribunal, pursuant to Article 144 (2) (b), 3, and 4 of the Constitution, for the question of the removal of Justice Kisaakye from office to be investigated.”
Till today, Justice Kisaakye’s Constitutional court petition against the Chief justice has never been scheduled for hearing. Interviewed about the delay, Judiciary spokesperson Jameson Karemani said, “I do not work in that court. Those who work there should know why the petition has not been fixed for hearing. Maybe they have several cases. I don’t know.”
The Observer
