Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) faction led by Joseph Bossa have vowed to defy all Court orders that were recently issued by Justice Steven Kavuma ordering them not to interfere with party activities.
Justice Kavuma ruled on Friday in an appeal filed by Lira Municipality legislator James Akena challenging the High Court decision under Justice Yasin Nyanzi which faulted his election as party president.
In his ruling, Kavuma granted an interim order staying the execution and or implementation of all the High Court orders which were granted under the Miscellaneous Cause No. 00086/2015 which had nullified Akena’s presidency.
However, at a press conference organised at Speke Hotel in Kampala on Sunday, Bossa’ team led by Prof. Edward Kakonge the National Chairman, Okello Lucima the Spokesperson and Isha Otto noted that the party resolved during a national council held on Saturday to defy the said orders.
“The party resolved to respect due process and legitimate decisions of competent courts but to defy ‘politicized’ court judgements and abuse of Court processes,” Kakonge noted.
“I have found out that there is notice in the High Court that the ruling was supposed to be given on 13th December, this means the judge must have summed to pressure to change the date and hurriedly bring it forward,” Kakonge observed.
“This is very unfortunate to the judge and up to now we have not yet been served with any orders that’s why we proceeded to the National Council meeting legally.”
Lucima noted that, “Today it’s one year since Justice Nyanzi’s ruling and the Court process has been used; they have used the appeal process to subvert justice and we know there are elements within the judicial system who are being used.”
“We shall not accept temporary orders due to the abuse and miss use of Court processes; the beneficiaries have been the Akena group whom we know as NRM and not UPC.”
“The Court didn’t uphold Akena as the UPC president but these are the same temporary injunctions that have always been granted to the group time and again; any judgement that we feel is politicized, we shall defy.”
On why court delivered the ruling Friday, Kavuma noted that, “Fixing the case on Monday was an error, Court realized that the extraordinary meeting (organized by Bossa) is taking place tomorrow; Court decided that it is imperative that the ruling is delivered so that the outcome may not be rendered nugatory.”