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.