Musumba applied for substituted service on claims that Kadaga or her agents had declined to receive the petition in which she is accused of involvement in vote-rigging and voter bribery during the recently concluded parliamentary elections.
Justice Eva Luswata, the Jinja High Court resident judge will hear Salamu Musumba’s application of substituted service
against the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga.
Musumba applied for substituted service on claims that Kadaga or
her agents had declined to receive the petition in which she is accused of
involvement in vote-rigging and voter bribery during the recently concluded
parliamentary elections.
Substituted service in legal terms means that an applicant can serve an
accused person by
leaving the documents with a designated agent, adult in the recipient's home or
place of work.
In her application, Musumba states that she attempted to serve the
petition to Kadaga at her known public office located at the Parliament of Uganda
but was busy, prompting her to apply for substituted service.
According to Musumba, unlike other applications where substituted service
can be done by court officials, election petitions are served by the
petitioners themselves directly to the respondents or their appointed agents
claiming that it was a sign of prejudice for the respondents to receive the
petition from the court registry without her consent.
Last week, the deputy registrar, Fred Waninda presided over the
hearings of the application and set 21 April as the date to deliver his ruling
on the same, however, Musumba wrote a letter to the principal judge protesting how
the case was being handled at court and demanded a judge to intervene.
While presiding over the hearing of Musumba’s application on
Wednesday evening, Luswata stated that the application was a simple matter and
they had resorted to allocate the same to Waninda but, since the applicant
was dissatisfied with the methods of operation, the principal judge assigned
her.
Luswata further set Thursday as the day on which she will
deliver her ruling on the same.
However, Kadaga’s lawyer, John Mary Mugisha stated that, since the
respondent had already received the petition, filed affidavits in reply and
served the applicant’s lawyers too, the application was since overtaken by
events and asked the court to dismiss it with costs.
John Isabirye, Musumba's lawyer has since refuted claims of receiving the
respondent’s reply claiming that, the respondent and her lawyers intentionally
declined to be served with the petition.
//cue in: “we have never…
Cue out…as it is,”.
On her part, Musumba says that election petitions and their
related applications are matters of public interest which should be handled
within the stipulated legal frameworks, but with what she terms as the rush in
which her application was being handled by the registrar, she was prompted to
write a letter expressing dissatisfaction to the principal judge who in turn
addressed her concerns.
