The East African Court of Justice (EACJ) denied Uganda’s Inspectorate of Government’s (IGG) application to be added as a respondent to the case Geoffrey Kazinda filed at the EACJ in which he alleges that the Uganda Court of Appeal judgement in March 2022 which dismissed his appeal against conviction by the Anti Corruption Court in 2020 is unlawful and an infringement on the fundamental and operational principles of the East African Community.
In its ruling dated November 23, 2023, a panel of five judges at the EACJ led by the principal judge Hon. Yohane B Masara ruled that the IGG is not an institution of the Community as envisaged under Article 30(1) of the EAC Treaty nor an organ of the Community as stipulated under Article 9(1) of the same treaty.
The ruling followed a letter the IGG wrote to the EACJ in Arusha, Tanzania in June 2022 seeking to be added as a respondent to this case together with the Attorney General arguing that it was she (IGG) who investigated and prosecuted Kazinda for illicit enrichment at the Anti Corruption Court in Kololo, Kampala from which the impugned judgement arises.
The application was supported by an affidavit of Patricia Achan Okiria, the deputy IGG.
This move was however contested by both Kazinda and the Attorney General at the EACJ with Kazinda arguing that the EACJ lacks jurisdiction to entertain the application because the Inspectorate of Government is neither an institution of the Community nor a representative of a Partner State.
He further contended that the IGG being a creation of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, is represented by the Attorney General under Article 119 (3) and (4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, despite having some powers under Article 230 (1) and (2) of the said Constitution. He therefore prayed for the Application to be dismissed with costs.
On his part, the Attorney General asserted that the IGG does not have the legal capacity or personality to commence civil proceedings in any court, including the EACJ.
He also emphasized that Article 250(4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, does not grant the IGG the power or authority to sue and be sued in civil proceedings. He contended that Article 250(4) only addresses the enforcement of claims against the government and that only the Attorney General has the mandate to represent all government institutions under Article 250 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda.
The Attorney General also dismissed the relevance of the fact that the Inspectorate of Government has been named as a party in previous cases, as this does not automatically grant them the authority to be made a party before the EACJ and therefore prayed for the dismissal of the application.
In response, the IGG asserted her right to be included as a party in the Reference, despite objections from the Kazinda and the attorney General. She argued that her legal capacity to do so is supported by various provisions of the Ugandan Constitution and some municipal court decisions.
The IGG legal team argued that the objections raised by both Kazinda and the Attorney General relate to the constitutional and statutory powers of the Attorney General and the Inspectorate of Government, as defined in various legal instruments. She asserted her role in criminal matters and her representation of the interests of Uganda in such cases.
In its ruling, the EAC determined that the Office of the IGG is not included among the institutions listed in Article 9(3) of the EAC Treaty as against which legal action can be brought nor is she an organ of the Community as stipulated under Article 9(1) of the Treaty.
The court further noted that Inspectorate of Government has no international legal personality and cannot therefore be held responsible for the Government of Uganda’s acts or omissions under the Treaty.
“The actions of the Applicant (IGG) can therefore only be challenged in this Court through the Attorney General as the Applicant does not personally fall within the purview of the Treaty. She cannot be joined as a Respondent to any proceedings before this Court and the Court has no jurisdiction over her in that context,” the ruling read.
The judges at the EACJ also wished to state that public institutions should strive to act in harmony and that this case is a typically unfortunate example of how public resources are put to imprudent and unnecessary waste over a matter that could have been resolved intra-government without having two government agencies deriding each other in this court over the improbable and otherwise avoidable costs to the taxpayer.
The EACJ therefore dismissed the IGGs application to be joined as a party in Geoffrey Kazinda’s case against the attorney general and also ordered the IGG to pay Kazinda the costs he incurred during the case since she unnecessarily dragged him to this court in the instant application.
Dissatisfied with this ruling, the IGG on December 21, 2023 filed a notice of appeal at the EACJ coupled with an attendant letter requesting for the record of proceedings, the ruling and the in order therein to enable her preparation for the memorandum of appeal.
However, in a twist, in a letter seen by Prime News dated January 10, 2024, the IGG again wrote to the EACJ withdrawing the notice of appeal and its intention to proceed with any further appeal processes in the matter with immediate effect.
Background Of the Case
Geoffrey Kazinda was the principal accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister until 2012 when he was arrested and charged in the Anti-Corruption Court on 2 counts of abuse of office, 2 counts of fraudulent false accounting, 1 count of causing financial loss, 26 counts of forgery and conspiracy to commit a felony.
In March 2014, these charges were heard and withdrawn but another case was instituted against him with 20 counts with the same facts as those which had been dropped.
Kazinda therefore ran to the Constitutional Court seeking among other things, to declare that the act by the directorate of public prosecutions to split the cases and sequentially initiating charges of offenses founded on the same facts for which he was earlier on convicted contravened the constitution.
With a 3-1 majority decision, the court agreed with Kazinda that all trials he faced after his conviction were illegal. The court however, noted that the said ground excludes charges of illicit wealth which were slapped on the former OPM official in 2016.
In 2020, the Anti Corruption Court’s Justice Margaret Tibulya convicted Kazinda on 3 counts of illicit enrichment and sentenced him to a term of 5 years’ imprisonment on each count to run consecutively meaning he was to serve a prison sentence of 15 years.
The court further ordered for the confiscation of Kazinda’s three plots of land within Kampala and four motor vehicles. Kazinda was also disqualified from holding public office for ten years.
Dissatisfied with the ruling of the trial court, Kazinda appealed against the conviction and sentence in the Court of Appeal which in its ruling
in March 2022, dismissed Kazinda’s appeal against conviction but allowed the appeal against sentence in part. The Court of Appeal therefore reduced h sentence from 15 years to 7 years and 7 months.
However, Kazinda was still dissatisfied with the Court of Appeal ruling and hence ran to the East Africa Court of Justice last year requesting it to order the annulment of the decisions of Uganda’s Court of Appeal in his criminal appeals and the High Court’s Anti Corruption division conviction and sentence from which it arose. The court is yet to set a date for the hearing of the case.