Mutale defeats IGG in job case

May 05, 2004

FORMER presidential adviser Maj Kakooza Mutale yesterday said he looked forward to resuming office after partly winning a 10-month court battle for reinstatement

By Jude Etyang
FORMER presidential adviser Maj Kakooza Mutale yesterday said he looked forward to resuming office after partly winning a 10-month court battle for reinstatement.
“The judgement was fair. I am relieved from all the anxieties with all these arguments in court for all those months. I am ready to go back to office very soon,” said a jovial Mutale outside the Kampala High Court after the ruling.

Mutale’s aides escorted him to court in a convoy of vehicles. They ululated after the ruling.
Present to share Mutale’s happiness was presidential adviser on political affairs Moses Byaruhanga, the President’s legal officers Fox Odoi and Hussein Kashilingi.

The court nullified Mutale’s dismissal but left the reinstatement decision to the President.
Justice Yorokamu Bamwine, reading a 53-page judgement, said he could not order Mutale’s reinstatement because the IGG was right to recommend his dismissal for breach of the Leadership Code Act of 2002.

Bamwine said the President should deal with Mutale’s breach of the law. He said the President could order independent investigations into the matter.
President Yoweri Museveni sacked Mutale on August 8 last year for refusing to declare his wealth.

Mutale, however, appealed the dismissal on grounds that the IGG’s recommendation was unlawful because he did not get a chance to defend himself.
Museveni swore an affidavit in support of Mutale’s appeal, saying he was ready to reinstate him if the court proved him innocent.

Bamwine said the IGG did all he could to make Mutale declare his wealth but the latter “consciously, deliberately, calculatively and stubbornly refused to comply.”
“I would declare null and void the decision of the authorised person (President) under the (Leadership Code) Act relieving the appellant (Mutale) of his office,” Bamwine said.

Bamwine said the Constitutional Court ruling nullified some sections of the code, making Tumwesigye’s recommendations to the President for dismissal of certain officers unenforcable.
Bamwine awarded Mutale one third of the costs of the appeal because he only won the appeal against the failure of the IGG to give him a hearing.

Ruled in the Attorney General’s favour were the argument whether the IGG’s recommendation was lawful and if one could declare wealth when there was no prescribed form.

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