Lawyers Stranded After Chief Magistrate Kidasa Sets Tough Conditions On Releasing Mabirizi After Constitutional Court Decision…

Lawyers representing maverick city lawyer Male Mabirizi are stranded after Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Ritah Kidasa Wanyama set tough conditions if she is to dismiss criminal charges against him basing on the decision of the Constitutional Court.

Male Mabirizi with his lawyers and magistrate Ritah Kidasa Wanyama

Lawyers representing maverick city lawyer Male Mabirizi are stranded after Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Ritah Kidasa Wanyama set tough conditions if she is to dismiss criminal charges against him basing on the decision of the Constitutional Court.

Early this week, Constitutional judges declare that Section 26 and 28 of the Computer Misuse Act in which Mabirizi is being charged is unconstitutional and since Tuesday, his lawyers led by Uganda Law Society vice president Anthony Asiimwe have been struggling to secure his release from Luzira prison insisting that his continued detention is unconstitutional and illegal.

They wrote to Kidasa seeking for a production warrant directing Luzira prison to produce Mabirizi to Court so that he is formally released and counsel Yasin Ssentumbwe Munnagomba was assigned to follow up the legal process.

Speaking to Ono Bwino, Ssentumbwe said that the trial magistrate directed him to give her the certified copies of the Constitutional Court decision which he wanted to base on to release the accused person which he did on Thursday this week.

However, Ssentumbwe claimed that after delivering the certified copies to the magistrate, she changed her mind and told them that she will only issue the production warrant after he presents a decree from the judgement.

“She is just complicating things, this is real persecution, now we are struggling to get the attention of the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka to sign on the decree so that the magistrate can issued the production warrant,” Ssentumbwe said.

He added that Mabirizi is likely to spend more days in prison because the process which the magistrate subjected them to is not a one-day thing especially when top senior judicial officers have interest in the matter.

Mabirizi was charged with offences related to hate speech as prosecution claim that through his social media platforms, he spread hate speech against the person of the Chief Justice Dr Flavian Zeija and Justice Musa Ssekaana of the Constitutional Court also doubles as the Court of Appeal

The development comes days after Mabirizi personally wrote to Kidasa asking her to recuse herself from his trial after accusing her of being biased against him because of the complaint he filed against her in Judicial Service Commission seeking her removal from the office of the judicial officer over incompetence.

Efforts to get a comment from the judiciary publicist James Eremye on the presiding magistrate were futile as our calls on both his phone numbers went unanswered.