ARUSHA: Court rejects appeal against Lema's reinstatement

BY KARAMA KENYUNKO.

The Court of Appeal has thrown over board an application filed by three cadres of CCM seeking it to review the verdict which reinstated Godbless Lema as the Arusha Urban lawmaker. 

The court also ordered the applicants to pay all the case’s costs of which Lema claimed to have amounted to 300m/-.

The decision was reached yesterday when the appeal came up for hearing before a panel of three judges Engela Kileo, Bernard Luanda, and Salum Massati, who threw it away for lack of legal merits and ordered the appellants to pay the costs of the case.

Kileo said after the panel went through submissions from both parties, it discredited the appeal for lacking legal merits and for other reasons which it said will be explained later.

Before the court reached its decision, the panel struck out an application from the applicants who wanted the appeal to be heard by a panel of seven judges, with Advocate Alute Mugwai saying the requirement was due to the circumstances and sensitivity of the matter.

Advocate Method Kimomogoro representing Lema objecting the request, said the application was improper before the court. The panel of judges seconded the respondent’s argument and struck out.

The CCM cadres Musa Hamis Mkanga, Agness Gidion Mollel and Happy Emannuel Kivuyo filed the application in February this year giving several grounds to fault the judgment delivered by Judge Nathalia Kimaro, Bernard Luanda and Salum Massati, on December 21, last year.

In their decision, the judges quashed the ruling made by High Court Judge Gabriel Rwakibarila who nullified Lema’s 2010 victory on grounds that in the election campaigns held between August 20 and October 2010, the MP used abusive language towards his opponent, Batilda Burian, contrary to electoral laws and regulations.

The appeal judges held, among others, that the three applicants had no ‘locus standi’ to petition the High Court to challenge the election results on grounds that during the campaigns ahead of the parliamentary election, the winner used abusive language.

In their application, the trio wanted the decision to be revised. They alleged that the ruling made by the judges on grounds that they had no ‘locus standi’, was contradicting another decision given by the same court, particularly on how the English Common Law and National Election Act could be applied in election cases.

The applicants further stated that the court erred when it held that there was no evidence on records to indicate that they were registered voters and it wrongly decided that the right of voters to challenge election results was limited only to the violation of his or her right to vote.

In the appeal, Lema challenged the decision given by the High Court on April 5, last year, declaring his 2010 General Election results null and void. 

Though Lema got 56,561 votes while Dr Burian had 37,460 votes, the former’s victory was nullified after the court was satisfied that the then Chadema candidate uttered defamatory remarks and abusive language against his CCM opponent.

However, later on Chadema appealed against the ruling citing that the alleged defamatory and abusive language said to have been used by Lema against the CCM candidate in the preceding campaigns had not been proven. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (23/04/2013): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=53887