Two weeks into the hearing of election petitions, the courts have been advised against declaring runner-ups who successfully challenge the elections of their opponents as winners without going back for by-elections.
Supreme Court Justice Prof. Lilian Tibatemwa Ekirikubinza and Makerere University law lecturer, Dr Busingye Kabumba, say this is the highest form of disenfranchising voters.
The two senior legal scholars argue that if the court is satisfied that indeed the person who won the vote probably should not have been the one, the question of who should be rightfully elected should be thrown back to voters to determine.
They call upon parliament to consider amending again the Parliamentary Elections Act to reintroduce the Supreme Court as the final court of arbitration in elections matters.
For that matter, and considering as well the interest in having the election disputes conclusively decided within a short time, the law ought to be amended to create a special avenue for filing a final appeal to the Supreme Court on a pure question of law with the certificate of the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court itself that the question is one of high public importance.
