The contention for who shall represent Uganda in the International Jessup Moot in the Washington has intensified.
News reaching our desk indicates that Makerere Jessup team has joined Law Development Center (LDC) Jessup team in a counter petition against the declaration of the Uganda Christian University (UCU) team as winners of the national rounds.
In a story Campus Bee run yesterday, the results were declared in favour of UCU after they petitioned the Jessup Committee.
The Makerere team in their petition filed to International Law Students Association (ILSA) cites that their team was awarded low scores for their briefs before they went for the oral rounds. This they claimed denied them the chance to reach the finals.
They believe they had a better brief than that of UCU and would be the ones that qualified to face LDC in the final rounds.
The LDC team also initiated a petition earlier this week that sought to challenge the decision of the Jessup National Rounds committee for changing the results in favor of UCU, after they (LDC) had been declared the winners after the competition in Cavendish University.
Both petitions cite bias in the results. However, the Jessup rules are clear that when a party has cited a violation of their rules, it should be brought to the attention of the Jessup Committee before the announcement of the winners when it has occured or else the right to complain is waived.
Remedies available at the description of the ILSA are laid out under Rule 8.7 of the Jessup rules 2017 and include for overruling the results of one or more of the advanced rounds, changing the team declared as the winner of the round, add an additional representative of the country to attend the international rounds and issuing an apology.
ILSA is yet to decide.
