Court orders Basajjabalaba trial

By  Sania Babirye
City businessman Hassan Basajjabala  together with his brother Muzamir Basajjabalaba have been  ordered to be tried on their  corruption case that had been stayed before  the anti corruption court five years ago.
This is after Four out of the five justices of the constitutional court  refused  to drop the  charges of  conspiracy to defeat tax laws ,  forgery of a judicial document and uttering of a forged document .
The brothers had asked court to drop charges on grounds  that they would not get a  fair hearing  before  the Anti-corruption court.
However the four justices including solome bosa, Eldard Mwamgusha, Remmy Kasule and Apio Aweri  rule that  , there is nothing unconstitutional for the Basajjabalaba's to   face trial  before the Anti-corruption court since the said charges fall under the ambit of  the Anti-corruption Act.
The justices have now ordered  the  Constitutional court registrar  to quickly forward the case  file back to the Anti-corruption  court so that the stalled trial can be tried and determined .
However the constitutional court has   ordered that the High court assess compensation for Basajjabala and his brother on grounds that the DPP and the Uganda police violated their fundamental  rights after they were arrested and charged   with similar offenses yet a lower court Buganda road court  had granted them bail on the same charges.
The constitutional court has explained that it was unlawful for state agencies to act in such a manner.
Basajabalaba  and his brother were charged with the offenses as directors of Haha group after they failed to  to pay a 20 billion shillings tax liability out of  a 142 billion shillings they had gotten as  compesabtion  r from government  for loss of contracts to manage city markets between 2010 and 2011.