The republic of uganda in the supreme court of uganda at kampala

(21) That in reply to paragraphs 8 and 13 of the 1^st respondent’s affidavit in support of his answer to the petition, I know that the 15t respondent at a campaign meeting held at the International Conference Centre on Friday 26^th January 2001 to solicit support from motor cyclists (Boda Boda) the 18t respondent gave a gift of a new motor cycle to one of the cyclist voters by the name of Sam Kabuga in order to influence the motor cyclists/voters to vote for him (1st respondent).”

I shall deal with the issue revolving around the allegation of AIDS before handling the issue of giving gifts to voters as alleged.

I must point out that the elementary rule of evidence in Section 100 of the Evidence Act is inflexible and applies to all cases. It provides in part as follows

“Whoever desires any court to give judgment to any legal right or liability depending on the existence of facts which he asserts must prove those facts.”

Then Section 101 of the same Act makes it clear that the initial onus is always on the plaintiff and if he discharges the onus and makes out a case which entitles him to relief, the onus shifts on to the defendant to prove those circumstances, if any, which would disentitle the plaintiff to the same.

In this petition, it is necessary to examine the facts as alleged in light of the relevant law. Section 65 of the presidential Elections Act, 2000 provides as follows:

“any person who, before or during an election, publishes a false statement of the illness of a candidate at that election for purpose of promoting or procuring the election of another candidate knowing that statement to be false or not knowing or believing it on reasonable grounds to be true, commits an illegal practice.”


We have to apply the rule of evidence and the law in issue to the facts. The facts as already pointed out are that the petitioner asserted that the 1 respondent publicly and maliciously made a false statement that the petitioner was a victim of AIDS without any reasonable grounds to believe that it was true and that this false statement had the effect of promoting the election of candidate Museveni Yoweri Kaguta unfairly in preference to the petitioner alleged to be a victim of Al DS as voters were scared of voting for the petitioner who by necessary implication was destined to fail to carry out the function of the demanding office of the President and to serve out the statutory term.

It must be noted at this juncture that under Section 65 of the presidential Elections Act, 2000, the petitioner was required to prove to the satisfaction of the court the following ingredients:

“(1) That the 1^st respondent’s statement on which the complaint is founded was false.