Zziwa petitions EAC court over her impeachment

OUSTED Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly Dr Margaret Zziwa has asked the East African Court of Justice to summon four witnesses to appear and give evidence or produce essential documents that would assist the court to determine her case challenging her impeachment.

Zziwa also a former Kampala woman representative in the Ugandan Parliament is due to present her application before court on Monday, challenging her removal as wrongful and unlawful with a lot of vendetta.     

Zziwa, through Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) and Semuyaba, Iga & Co Advocates, seeks permission from the East African Court of First Instance Division to summon four EALA members; Susan Nakawuki, Agnes Mumbi Ngaru, ShyRose Bhanji and Nyerere Mukongoro to give evidence supporting her case.

According to her affidavit in support of the application, Zziwa asks the court to grant her application without legal technicalities, stating that her application required serious interpretation of the Treaty for the establishment of the East African Community.

Applying under the East African Court of Justice Rules of Procedure 2013, Zziwa asked the court to specify the time and place of attendance and its reason whether for giving evidence or for producing documents or both.

She further requested the court to describe with reasonable accuracy the documents required.

In September last year, the Secretary General of the East African Community raised preliminary points of law that the applicant's witnesses being members of EALA could not adduce evidence in court without first complying with the law on Powers and Privileges, hence this application.

In the meantime the applicant wrote a letter to EALA Speaker seeking such leave to prosecute her case and herself with her witnesses adduce evidence, but received no response.

Further, however, according to Zziwa's affidavit, after her second request the Speaker replied stating that the special leave should be requested from the whole Assembly at its plenary meeting that was supposed to be in October 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. However, her motion was not put on the Order Paper.

Zziwa wrote another letter to the EALA Speaker Dan Kidega seeking special leave for her witnesses to give evidence, but declined to grant leave to her, advising her to prepare a motion to a full house during plenary in Kigali.      

Zziwa states that following the Speaker's negative attitude towards her request, she together with her witnesses tabled a motion in the Assembly seeking special permission to be allowed to give evidence in her case, but again it was rejected and leave denied by a vote of 5 for the motion, 3 abstained and 23 were against it, hence this application seeking court's order.