The attorney general and solicitor general, according to insiders, didn’t know or authorise state attorney Geoffrey Madette to defend the state against a petition filed in the Constitutional court by Eric Sabiiti, a lawyer, seeking to stop parliament from “investigating, questioning or inquiring” into the Shs 6bn bonus payment to 42 government officials.
The officials were rewarded for winning at least $700m from a capital gains tax dispute between Uganda, Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil in 2013. In a surprising decision on Monday, deputy chief justice Steven Kavuma ordered parliament or any individual not to investigate the Shs 6bn oil cash bonanza, drawing a strong backlash from the legislature.
Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga suspended parliament and ordered the attorney general to have what she described as a “stupid order” vacated. Sabiiti, a lawyer with the Electoral Commission, had filed the petition against the attorney general on Monday evening and sought an interim order.
The attorney general was represented at the Constitutional court by state attorney Geoffrey Madette. But our sources say the AG never authorized Madette to represent the state in the matter.
The Observer has learnt that the scheme to gag parliament was orchestrated by some state lawyers who got part of the Shs 6bn. The state lawyers who got part of what has come to be known as the “presidential handshake” include; the solicitor general, Francis Atoke, who got Shs 234m; Martin Mwambutsya, a senior state attorney (Shs 232m), the director of Legal Affairs in the Solicitor General’s Office, Christopher Gashirabake (Shs 242m); and principal state attorney George Kalemera Shs 232m.
INTERNAL QUERIES
The peculiarities around the handling of the petition, according to a lawyer familiar with government, were too many to ignore. First, the lawyer said Madette, the state attorney who represented government, had no instructions from the director of civil litigation, Dennis Bireije. Bireije, according to our source, has the mandate to choose who handles which case.
At the attorney general’s chambers in the aftermath of the fallout with parliament, Bireije reportedly said he wasn’t aware of the petition and so couldn’t have allocated a lawyer to handle it.
According to our source, even Mwesigwa Rukutana, the deputy attorney general, distanced himself from the petition and suggested that it was Mwambustya, not Madette, who served him with Kavuma’s interim order.
Interviewed for a comment on Thursday, Bireije said: “You’re asking me to talk about internal matters of the ministry, which I shouldn’t be revealing.”
The attorney general, William Byaruhanga, also declined an interview on Thursday, saying he was too busy to answer any questions.
“With all the problems I have, really, it would be unfair for me to answer any questions now,” Byaruhanga said. “You would have to look for me later.”
PARLIAMENT IGNORED
According to sources, the attorney general was supposed to represent Parliament since the gag orders sought were affecting the legislature. Madette, who went to court, reportedly didn’t ask parliament for its opinion.
After Justice Kavuma issued the interim gag order, Robert Rutaro, one of the petitioners’ lawyers, delivered a copy to parliament’s legal department. Rutaro is the lawyer who last year secured an interim injunction from Justice Kavuma, stopping the impending trial of police chief Kale Kayihura and other senior police officers accused of ordering the beating of Dr Kizza Besigye’s supporters.
According to our sources, parliament was due to write to the Attorney General’s Office, complaining about the handling of the petition by Madette without an input from its legal department.
Chris Obore, parliament’s director of communication and public affairs, told us yesterday that the state attorneys never consulted parliament.
“Those lawyers are conflicted, they have a conflict of interest because they got money out of the deal,” Obore said, adding, “So, we cannot expect them to defend parliament well.”
Obore argued that though parliament is supposed to be represented by the attorney general, the speaker has always insisted on the House defending itself in cases against it.
“We have a full-fledged legal department here which is capable of defending parliament,” Obore said.
“But because of the law, as it is now, we have to be represented by the attorney general,” he added.
On January 6, Uganda Revenue Authority defended the cash bonus as a “standard international best practice” since public officials had won the country a combined total of $700m.
In his petition, which he has since withdrawn, Eric Sabiiti had argued that for parliament, any person or authority to purport to investigate the decision of the head of the state amounts to interfering with powers of the executive arm of government.
dkiyonga@observer.ug