The bench at the presidential election petition hearing at the Supreme Court in Kampala is seemingly unhappy with the legal team representing Amama Mbabazi, over trying to ask for more time to reportedly ‘present the case afresh’.
Mr Mbabazi team’s lead counsel Mohamed Mbabazi on today afternoon asked for more time to scrutinize all declaration forms that have been delivered this morning by Electoral Commission.
The Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday made its submissions on the presidential election petition, challenging petitioner Amama Mbabazi’s evidence and asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the suit that seeks to quash President Museveni’s victory in the February 18 election.
And today the EC lead lawyer Mr Enos Tumusiime again availed declaration forms for all the 28,010 polling stations of the 2016 election to Mr Amama’s legal team after court issued a second directive. The petitioners then asked for more time to scrutinize them, which was denied by the bench.
Counsel Mbabazi urged court to administer ‘substantive justice’ by allowing his team time to analyse documents, insisting that the EC lawyer Mr Tumusiime should refrain from saying that opposite counsel are wasting time yet he delayed to deliver the documents.
“We need to be mindful of the task before court given the time limitations,” Chief Justice Katureebe also reminded the Mbabazi team. And Museveni lawyer Kiwanuka Kiryowa chipped in: “If the petitioner was serious about filing this case, he should have applied for these documents way before filing the petition.”
