High Court postpones ruling in Kayanja case

By John Semakula

The court case pitting Pastor Robert Kayanja of Miracle Centre Cathedral, Rubaga and three other pastors has continued to stir public scrutiny five years since it was first filed.

On Tuesday, the High Court in Kampala postponed delivering a judgment in the case, drawing another phase of accusations and counter accusations from the two parties involved.

High Court Judge Justice Joseph Murangira was supposed to deliver the judgment at 9:00am but at about 11:00 am, he communicated that he was off duty.

The judge promised to issue another notice of judgment in the near future.

The message however didn’t go well with the three pastors, Michael Kyazze of Omega Healing Center, Martin Sempa of Makerere Community Church and Solomon Male of Arising for Christ.

The pastors, who were convicted in 2012 for conspiring to tarnish Pastor Kayanja’s reputation but later appealed in the High Court, accused the judiciary and Police of conniving to sabotage their fight against homosexuality.

They accuse the two institutions of corruption, and say the institution have denied them a fair judgment.

“I may not come back for this ruling when a new notice is served. This is a legal quagmire,” Pastor Sempa said. “We have wasted a lot of money chasing after justice.”

On the other hand, Pr. Male claimed he had got new evidence against Pastor Kayanja. He vowed to unleash the evidence soon and to continue fighting against the evil.

But speaking to New Vision, Pastor Kayanja, who was not in court, said that it was absurd that the three pastors had reached the extent of turning their guns against the Police and judiciary.

“The pastors ran to the courts for justice but because they are losing due to lack of evidence, they are now blaming Police and courts of law out of frustration,” he said.

Kayanja accused the three pastors of cooking evidence against him whenever there is a crucial ruling about to happen to hoodwink the public to side with them.

He said that he had evidence that the pastors were receiving cash to cook the evidence and tarnish his name.

In 2012, the three pastors were sentenced to communal work. High Court is expected to either uphold or quash the lower Court’s ruling.

Kayanja said he hoped the three pastors will not accuse him of bribing judicial officers as they did when the case was still before Magistrate’s Court.