Can You Imagine!! Parliament Locks Out Zaake From His Commissioner Office Amidst Court Order To Reinstate Him

Parliament has up to now refused to allow Mityana Municipality MP Francis Zaake back into office as a Parliamentary Commissioner, five weeks after the Constitutional Court ordered his reinstatement.

Despite promising back in September, to heed to the court ruling, the MP says as of this Wednesday morning, he’s been denied access to his office in the Parliamentary building.Hon Zaake, through his lawyers of Lukwago and Co Advocates, on Monday this week wrote back to Parliament for the second time, about his reinstatement.

But when the MP went this morning, he says, he was “informed that Parliament was not ready to abide by the Court’s decision.” Instead, he says, he was referred to an old letter, which instructed him to vacate his commissioner’s office at Parliament and take up space at a rented building in town.

“The office number N6- 17 at Parliament Main Building that you have been occupying is a designated institutional office for a Parliamentary Commission. You are therefore requested to hand over the Office of a Commissioner to the Sergeant-At-arms,” the March 1st letter reads in part.

“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that you have been allocated office Number 3.1 located at Queen Chamber Building on Parliamentary Avenue. The Sergeant-At-Arms is instructed to facilitate the issuance of office keys to you for the allocated office.”

It is understood that Zaake’s office locks at the Parliamentary building were changed.In his letter through his lawyers, the MP vowed to break into the office and forcefully take it back today, Wednesday. On September 28, the Constitutional Court overturned the decision by parliament to remove Zaake from the Parliamentary Commission.

The court in its judgment ruled that Zaake was illegally thrown out of the Commission (the top governing body of parliament) without a quorum.The judges also found House Speaker Anita Among to have had a conflict of interest, and for a number of house rules to have been breached in the process of suspending Zaake.

The Mityana MP was unceremoniously dismissed from the Parliamentary Commission in March 2022 for alleged misconduct and misbehavior. Zaake was accused of using derogatory terms to describe then Deputy Speaker Anitah Among on social media.