“One of the conditions necessary for the operation of
S63 of the Presidential Elections Act was to prove
that the person who is bribed is a voter”.
Mulenga, JSC, as he then was, agreed with his brother on this matter when he stated;
“There was no evidence to show that the one bribed
was a registered voter”
Sections 63 of Presidential Elections Act and 68 of the Parliamentary Elections Act
are in substantially similar terms.
The non certification of the Declaration of Results Forms and the tally sheet
completely destroyed the evidential value of those vital documents. Further, non
rectification of the deficiency in the court fees, in my view, fatally affected the
affidavits in support of the respondent’s petition which accompanied the petition,
those which were deponed to by the Petitioners’ other witnesses together with all the
annextures thereto in that they could not be accorded full force and effect in law.
Much of the evidence in proof of the election offences and illegal practices allegedly
committed by various officials of the 1st appellant was derived from these documents
affected in the two ways shown above. Good examples are the numbers of over one
thousand voters stated in the respondent’s letter to the Returning Officer regarding the
disenfranchisement of voters in Gwafu I and Gwafu II, and the Declaration of Results
Forms so heavily relied upon by the petitioner to prove that over 100 votes were
unjustifiably added to those polled by the 2nd appellant. Consequently this had
serious adverse effect on the evidence that would otherwise go to support the
petitioners’ case to the required standard. To discharge the burden the petitioner had
to satisfy the court on the allegations she made in the petition.
On a thorough scrutiny of all the evidence on non compliance with the principles and
provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Commission Act and the Parliamentary
Elections Act, I note that most of these affected the elections in one sub county of
Goma and only two parishes in the Kyampisi sub county. Considering that the entire
Parliamentary constituency of Mukono county North comprises of five sub counties
and a town council, the non compliance, the offences and illegall practices allegedly
committed were, in my considered view, not wide spread, not to the extent of