The Ugandan government has moved to the High Court to challenge the acquittal of Dr Stella Nyanzi on the offensive communication charge by a lower court.
The former Makerere University lecturer was slapped with 18 months in prison on August 2 for cyber harassment. She attended her sentencing via a video link.
However, Buganda Road Court Grade One Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu Musenze acquitted her one of the offences of offensive communication.
While delivering her ruling, the Magistrate stated that the Facebook post in question was not repeated and that the prosecution failed to prove that the issue disturbed the peace, quiet or right of privacy of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
It’s on this ground that the state has appealed the ruling saying the trial magistrate erred in law and fact when she ruled that the Facebook post was not repeated leading to the acquittal of Dr Nyanzi on the offensive communication charge.
Read: Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi Strips During Her Sentencing
The state, further, argues the magistrate failed to evaluate evidence on record thus arriving at the wrong conclusion by acquitting the activist.
“The state prays that this honourable court allows this appeal, sets aside and reverses the judgment of the trial magistrate acquitting Nyanzi on offensive communication but maintains the conviction and sentence on cyber harassment,” the appeal reads in part.
This comes just days after Inyanzi appealed against unfair conviction and sentencing.
In her appeal filed at the High Court, Nyanzi argues that the court did not have the jurisdiction and that she allowed the charge that was incurably defective, unacceptably vague and barred by law.
According to reports by the Daily Monitor, the activist now wants the conviction quashed and the punishment set aside on grounds that the magistrate passed an illegal and unproportionate sentence.
Read Also: Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi Decries Mistreatment After Undressing In Court
“That the learned trial magistrate erred in law and fact when she failed to accord to the appellant the necessary facilities to compel the attendance of witnesses, and thereby infringed on the appellant’s right to a fair hearing,” the Ugandan media quotes court document.
Further, Nyanzi argues that the magistrate erred in law and fact when she failed to facilitate the attendance of the defence witness during her sentencing.
“The learned trial magistrate committed a grave procedural irregularity when she deprived the appellant of the right to address the court after the close of the defense case and in reply or opposition to the written submissions of the prosecution which were concealed from the appellant,” she states.
She faults the trial magistrate for failing to evaluate evidence on record, hence, wrongly convicting her over cybercrime offence.
Read Also: Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi Appeals Against ‘Unfair Conviction, Sentence’
She further alleges that the magistrate contravened Article 28(5) of the 1995 Constitution, Section 123 of the Magistrates Court Act, and the Judicature (Visual-Audio Link) Rules (2016) when she conducted proceedings via Visual-Audio Link.
Nyanzi has been detained in jail since November 2018, and Amnesty International wants the ruling overturned saying that it kills the freedom of expression in Uganda.
Several humanitarian groups and colleagues continue to condemn her sentence by Ugandan authorities using the hashtag #freestellanyanzi.
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