Lady Justice Jane Kiggundu of the Criminal Division of the High Court in Kampala has dismissed a criminal revision appeal lodged by Save Our Soccer (SOS).
SOS, a pressure group led by Denis Mbidde, was challenging the ruling of the Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Sylvia Nabaggala who acquitted and freed the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) President Lawrence Mulindwa, the Chief Executive Officer, Edgar Watson and the Chairman of the Federation’s Legal Committee Muhammed Bazirengende, of criminal charges related to the alleged forgery of the FUFA constitution.
In January this year, SOS sued FUFA officials for allegedly forging the FUFA constitution, making false documents, fraud and breach of trust. Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Sylvia Nabaggala, however, dismissed the case on grounds that it was erroneously brought before court and the charges brought forward were inconsistent in law because FUFA is not a public body.The Magistrate also cancelled criminal summons issued against the FUFA officials and said they had no case to answer.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, SOS officials petitioned the High Court.
But the court ruled on Thursday that the application for review lodged in the High Court challenging part of the proceedings of the Chief Magistrate, was prematurely brought before the Court. Lady Justice Kiggundu explained that the revision orders of the High Court are made in respect to final orders and judgments of Court and not interlocutory orders.
Kiggundu further held that the Chief Magistrate was right in dismissing the private criminal prosecution brought by Mbidde because it was premised on an incurably defective affidavit and charge sheet which could have caused injustice to the accused if they were forced to take plea on a defective affidavit and charge sheet.
The high court thus upheld the February 3 ruling of the Buganda Road court Chief Magistrate and dismissed the application.
FUFA spokesman Rogers Mulindwa described the ruling as very good for FUFA saying the Federation has yet to lose a case this year.
FUFA was represented by Evans Ochieng and Alex Luganda, while SOS had Mulema Mukasa and David Ssempala.
