The High Court has dismissed an application by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party’s Electoral Nomination & Dispute Resolution Committee seeking to suspend a tribunal judgment that reinstated nominated Senator Gloria Magoma Orwoba.
In a ruling delivered virtually on April 13, Justice Linus Kassan also threw out a preliminary objection filed by Senator Orwoba, but ruled that the committee had failed to demonstrate substantial loss, making a stay of execution unwarranted.
The dispute traces back to May 16, 2025, when the UDA’s disciplinary committee expelled Orwoba from the party.
She successfully challenged the decision at the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal (PPDT), which on August 20, 2025, quashed the expulsion, declaring it unlawful, unprocedural, and void.
Aggrieved, the UDA’s Electoral Nomination & Dispute Resolution Committee filed an appeal at the High Court and simultaneously sought a stay of the tribunal’s orders pending the hearing of the appeal.
Senator Orwoba had raised a preliminary objection, arguing that the appellant committee was an “unknown, unrecognized, and unincorporated entity” with no legal capacity to sue or to be sued.
She further contended that since the committee was not a party to the original tribunal case, it lacked locus standi to appeal.
Justice Kassan dismissed the objection, ruling that it was not founded on a “settled and crisp point of law” but was instead “blurred by factual details liable to be contestation.”
“The objections as can be garnered concern capacity to sue or be sued; locus standi; and joinder or misjoinder, all of which present factual elements that are liable to challenge by the Applicant,” the judge ruled.
On the application for stay of execution, the court found that the UDA committee had moved swiftly, filing its motion just two days after the tribunal’s decision.
However, the judge ruled that the applicant failed to prove the cornerstone requirement for a stay, substantial loss.
Justice Kassan ruled that the tribunal’s judgment contained both negative and positive orders, including directives to the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties and the Speaker of the Senate.
As such, Orwoba’s claim that the orders were merely “negative” and incapable of execution did not hold.
However, the judge was not persuaded by the applicant’s fears of being cited for contempt, holding that the tribunal’s orders were specifically directed at the UDA party, not the committee that filed the appeal.
“It is also disingenuous of the counsel to argue contempt by a non-party yet by implication of his own pleadings he fails to properly capture the parties as amended before the Tribunal,” the ruling stated.
The court further dismissed arguments that the appeal would be rendered nugatory, ruling that the 13th parliamentary cycle had not yet lapsed and that the tribunal’s orders did not hinder the UDA from carrying out its disciplinary mandate against other members.
“The Applicant has failed to demonstrate substantial loss should this Court fail to grant an order of stay of execution pending appeal. Substantial loss in its various forms is the cornerstone of the Court’s jurisdiction for granting stay,” Justice Kassan ruled.
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