Lady Justice Jane Kigundu of the Criminal Division of the High Court in Kampala on Thursday 24th May 2012 dismissed the criminal revision appeal lodged by SOS.
SOS, lead by Denis Mbidde and his colleagues in the background were challenging the ruling of the Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Sylivia Nabaggala who acquitted and freed the FUFA President Lawrence Mulindwa, the Chief Executive Officer Edgar Watson and the Chairman of the Federation Legal Committee Muhammed Bazirengende of criminal charges related to the alleged forgery of the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) constitution.
The High Court held that the application for review lodged in the High Court challenging part of the proceedings of the Chief Magistrate was prematurely brought before the High Court. Lady Justice Kigundu explained that the revision orders of the High Court are made in respect to final orders and judgments of Court and not interlocutory orders. .
The learned Justice further held that the Chief Magistrate was right in dismissing the private criminal prosecution brought by Dennis Mbidde (SOS) 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 ruling of the Buganda Road court Chief Magistrate and dismissed the application for review lodged by the so called Save Our Soccer selfish group.
FUFA was represented by Counsel Ochieng Evans and Luganda Alex while SOS had Mulema Mukasa and David Ssempala. FUFA has not lost any single Court case since the year begun and this is the third victory for the federation since January.
