{"id":71564,"date":"2023-12-20T07:50:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T04:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kfm.co.ug\/?p=71564"},"modified":"2023-12-20T07:50:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T04:50:10","slug":"judicial-body-petitioned-over-conduct-of-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/judicial-body-petitioned-over-conduct-of-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial body petitioned over conduct of judge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Priscilla Maloba<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Seven lawyers have petitioned the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), disputing the conduct of a judge over a judgment he rendered involving families in Hoima District affected by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project (EACOP).<\/p>\n<p>The lawyers are against the decision of Hoima High Court Judge Jesse Byaruhanga Rugyema.<br \/>\nIn a December 18 petition from Kiiza &amp; Mugisha Advocates, the lawyers said they are\u201cflabbergasted that the rule of law is being sacrificed on the dirty altar of unmistakable judicial bias, unprofessionalism, incom- petence and other shortfalls by His Lordship Jesse Byaruhanga Rugyema, in a bid to grant favours to government and TotalEnergies\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The aggrieved lawyers include Eron Kiiza, Dickens Kamugisha, Bashir Twesigye, Frank Tumusiime, Clare Ayebare, Micheal Musiime and <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Brighton Aryampa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">\u201cWe protest in the strongest terms <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">and register our shock, and trepida<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">tion regarding the summary order <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">by his Lordship Byaruhanga granted on December 8 to effectively evict and dispossess Tilenga project-affected persons,\u201d the lawyers said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">According to the lawyers, it took Justice Byaruhanga less than four days to grant the wish to TotalEnergies, and refused to hear the other side, despite the pleas. They said Justice Byaruhanga did not give complainants time for replies and to file contrary evidence and legal submissions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">The petition by the lawyers follows the December 8 High Court ruling in Hoima District where the court ruled against 42 households challenging the inadequate compensation by the Tilenga oil project.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">The court ruled against dozens of families claiming they were shortchanged when compensated for land used to develop the oil project. Eleven of the 42 households, through their lawyers, are expected to file their appeal today at the Court of Appeal .<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Mr Jealousy Mugisha, one of the affected persons, said they got the court summons late, hence couldn\u2019t prepare their defence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">\u201cThe ruling was in the favour of the government and TotalEnergies. We asked the judge to give us more<br role=\"presentation\" \/>time so that our counsel can read a 400-page document to write a summary defence but it fell on deaf ears,\u201d he told <em><strong>Daily Monitor<\/strong><\/em> yesterday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Mr Eron Kiiza,the lawyer to the affected families, now wants the Judicial Service Commission to punish Justice Byaruhanga.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">When contacted, Justice Byaruhanga told this publication to read the record of what happened in court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">\u201cIt is not good for a judge to address the press about court matters. But also it is not how they put it be- cause they had lawyers. You cannot have lawyers and say that your rights were trampled upon,\u201d he said by telephone yesterday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">The Commission recruits judicial officers and regulates their conduct. Meanwhile, Ms Maria Tereza Nab-<br role=\"presentation\" \/>ulya, the spokesperson of the Judicial Service Commission, said: \u201cThe Permanent Secretary received it [pe- tition] and forwarded it to the Directorate of Complaints Investigation and Disciplinary Affairs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Priscilla Maloba Seven lawyers have petitioned the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), disputing the conduct of a judge over a judgment he rendered involving families in Hoima District affected by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project (EACOP). The lawyers are against the decision of Hoima High Court Judge Jesse Byaruhanga Rugyema. In a December 18 petition from Kiiza &amp; Mugisha Advocates, the lawyers said they are\u201cflabbergasted that the rule of law is being sacrificed on the dirty altar of unmistakable judicial bias, unprofessionalism, incom- petence and other shortfalls by His Lordship Jesse Byaruhanga Rugyema, in a bid to grant favours to government and TotalEnergies\u201d. The aggrieved lawyers include Eron Kiiza, Dickens Kamugisha, Bashir Twesigye, Frank Tumusiime, Clare Ayebare, Micheal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":71565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[257,2416],"class_list":["post-71564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-court","tag-hoima-high-court-judge-jesse-byaruhanga-rugyema"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}