Ruling on army, workers MPs is 'total madness'

By Vision Reporter

Western Youth MP Gerald Karuhanga has described as ‘crazy’ a court ruling which threw out workers, Youth and Army MPs from Parliament.

“It’s a crazy ruling. It’s total madness that somebody can even think of such an idea. Hopefully, the Attorney General will find it a matter of urgency and files an appeal in the Supreme Court,” Karuhanga said.

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday blocked the forthcoming for interest groups after discovering that the existing laws governing their election to parliament was unconstitutional.

This follows three constitutional petitions that were initially separately filed by three petitioners, Robinson Kasozi, Legal Actions for Persons with Disability and Moses Mauku with Catherine Aneno, challenging as unconstitutional the law that governs the elections of the interest groups.

The Petition was against the Electoral Commission, the Attorney General and National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda.

The petitioners had argued that the previous holding of elections in respect of the youth, workers and people with disabilities contravened certain provisions of the Constitution and they should be declared null and void.

However, the Attorney General had opposed the petitions arguing that they had been overtaken by events following the conduct and conclusion of the 2011 elections under which the interest groups had been elected.

The court further ruled that the duty of Parliament could not be delegated to any other person, but what could be delegated were ancillary or subsidiary matters that assist in the achievement of the duty cast upon Parliament.

The court further explained that it was Parliament's duty to create an electoral college out of members of two federations of workers, which are NOTU and COFTU that are National Organization of Trade Unions and Central Organization of Free Trade Unions respectively.