HH, GBM show up for Munali seat ruling Tanzania MP jailed for defaming President Magufuli
DAR ES SALAAM - A Tanzanian legislator has been handed a five month jail term for defaming President John Pombe Magufuli in a ‘hate speech’ delivered while addressing a rally on December 30, last year.
The Senior Resident Magistrate at Mbeya Resident Magistrate Court, Michael Mteite delivered the ruling against the member of parliament for Mbeya Urban, Joseph Mbilinyi, popularly known as ‘Sugu’.
ANTICIPATING a final nullification of Professor Nkandu Luo’s seat, UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema yesterday showed up at the Consitutional Court with vice president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba and other executive members.
However, Mr Hichilema, who walked into the court room as Justice Enock Mulembe read out the ruling, was disappointed to discover the matter being dealt with was whether or not a video could be admitted into court as evidence.
As the ruling was read out concerning the video evidence, social media was set ablaze by a fake alert suggesting that the Munali Seat had been nullified.
Premature celebrations were however, shortlived as the true story from the courts penetrated the social media.
Other officials that had accompanied Hichilema, included William Banda, Patrick Mucheleka and losing UPND Munali constituency candidate Doreen Mwamba.
A handful of UPND cadres flocked the court grounds expectantly waiting to hear the Constitutional Court pronouncements over the Munali seat.
The Constitutional Court ordered that High Court Justice Musoma should view the said video evidence in the presence of all the parties involved and authenticate the said evidence involving the nullification of the parliamentary election.
Delivering the ruling yesterday, Constitutional Court Justice Enock Mulembe explained that it was in the interest of justice, and in public interest that they send back the video to the lower court for verification.
He said the Constitution was silent on the court’s jurisdiction to review its own decision, hence the decision to take back the matter to the High Court for authentication.
This was a decision of the full Constitutional Court bench alongside vice president Lady Justice Ann Sitali and Lady Justice Mungeni Mulenga.
The decision therefore means that the High Court will have to review the video evidence before March 29, 2018 to help endorse the video as the one presented before court in 2016.
This was in the case in which Ndola High Court Justice Edward Musoma in November 2016 nullified the Munali Constituency elections on allegations of violence and electoral malpractices prior to the August 2016 general elections.
Even security had to be reinforced with extra police presence after a number of buses were turned away at the gate as the numbers swelled inside the court premises.
Professor Luo had appealed against the High Court’s decision to nullify her seat that it was unattainable to insinuate that her party (PF) instigated the alleged violence amongst her heads of argument submitted before the Constitutional Court.
The appeal was however met with opposition when the respondents contended that the appeal was defective and incomplete as it did not contain all the case exhibits as presented before the lower court.
The Constitutional Court had made a decision to proceed with the appeal hearing without the video evidence which they said could have been doctored, but Ms Mwamba requested for the court to dismiss the appeal that it did not meet the Court’s condition of a proper appeal.