The Government team defending the Age Limit Law have presented submissions in support of the Constitutional Amendments that erased Presidential Age Limits from the Constitution.
The team is led by the deputy Attorney General who told the court that the petitioners who are beseeching court to nullify the act have not presented any justifiable case to support their plea.
He also notes that there is no basis in the assertion by the petitioners that the MPs who passed the age limit bill acted greedily and in self-interest.
Rukuntana has submitted before court that MPs are not mere delegates but representatives who are vested with powers to make decisions on behalf of the people they represent with or without consulting them unless there is a justifiable cause to do so.
Here Rukuntana has drawn a distinction for court between the mandate of a representative who looks and thinks like the people he represents and therefore can act on their behalf and a delegate who works on given instructions of the people who elected him.
The Deputy Attorney General has now asked court not to interfere with the will of the people of Uganda to lift the maximum presidential age.
Meanwhile, the five petitioners in the on-going age-limit case at Mbale wound up their submissions this morning by asking court to nullify the newly enacted Age – limit law on grounds that it offends several Articles of the Constitution.
The petitioners including Uganda Law Society, Male Mabirizi, 6 opposition MPs, Prosper Busingye and advocate Jonathan Abaine through their respective lawyers concluded by highlighting to court four major reasons as to why the Age- limit law should be annulled.
Among them is the fact that parliament exceeded its mandate and unlawfully made constitutional amendments without upholding the Constitution, the supreme law of our land.
The petitioners therefore asked court to declare that the whole process of tabling, enacting and assenting to the law violated various provisions of the Constitution, and offended the provided safeguard structures against dictatorship.
The petitioners’ lawyers Elias Lukwago and Male Mabirizi have cited several instances to court where parliament allegedly faulted its rules of procedure during the much heated debate of the age – limit bill.
These among others are; smuggling the bill on the order paper by the speaker on 19th September 2017, suspension of MPs during the debate and voting time, failure to close the doors of the chambers during voting and failure to allow members of the public to access the gallery during the debate in Parliament.
Lawyer Joseph Mabirizi who is representing himself in his submissions argued they were also to the effect that Parliament did not comply with the rules of procedure which make the law a nullity.
One of the issues he cited was the fact that opposition members of Parliament were not present in the House during the debate on the Age Limit Bill.
His argument was however challenged by the Justices with Deputy Chief Justice Alphonse Owinyi Dollo pointing out that some opposition MPs walked out of the House voluntarily.
