UCU Counter-Sues its Expelled Students

Rusticated students Yasin Sentumbwe and Simon Semuwemba are headed for a protracted battle against Uganda Christian University after the Church-founded institution turned the muzzle against them and slapped the duo with a law suit because they are “fundraising for their case” and “extensively addressing the public about it”.

UCU’s lawyers claim that Simon and Yasin’s actions of addressing the media about their predicament, as well as entreating the public for financial help to support their case, are in contempt of Court and therefore unlawful.

In his affidavit attached to the lawsuit, UCU’s Faculty of Law Dean Mr. Anthony Kakooza accuses them of recording moving images of the Judge as she was hearing their case on 5th September 2016 “yet she had explicitly proscribed anyone from doing so,” and later posted the same on social media and YouTube.

Mr. Kakooza affirms that basing on the angle at which the images were captured, the students must have made these recordings given the position in which they were seated inside the Judge’s chambers on 5th Sept. The law don asserts that Yasin and Simon knew that such behavior is unlawful “since they are law students”.

It should be noted that besides being their dean at law school and now their accuser, Mr. Kakooza also doubles as the head of the students’ disciplinary committee which tried the students before they were expelled early this year.

UCU wants an injunction not only stopping the students from speaking to the media about their case but also continuing to solicit financial help from the public to sustain their case against the Mukono-based university. The university also wants Court to award it costs of the application.

Having been contacted by Campus Bee for a comment, Simon and Yasin denied all allegations contained in UCU’s lawsuit. Yasin called the university’s latest action the “continuation of a well calculated witch-hunt”.

However, Simon expressed fear that should UCU succeed with the lawsuit, “it will not only make it practically impossible for us to raise the legal costs we direly need to sustain our fight against the injustice that was cruelly meted out on us, but also have a chilling effect on other students’ right to expose the iniquities to which they are routinely subjected by university/school authorities.” The case is yet to be given a hearing date.