Uganda top court backs lifting of age limit, rejects Parliament term extension

What you need to know:

Constitutional Court upholds lifting of presidential age limit.
Four judges backed the age cap removal; the entire bench rejects extension of the term of Parliament by two years.
Only one judge ruled against all the amendments.

Uganda's Constitutional Court delivered its ruling on the consolidated presidential age limit petition at the High Court in Mbale on Thursday.

The three main issues the court was to rule on were the lifting of the age caps, extension of the term of Parliament and the raid on the House last year.

In the verdict, the five-judge bench, by a majority of 4-1, upheld the removal of the 75-year age cap that allows President Yoweri Museveni, now 73 and in office for 32 years, to seek a sixth term.

The court unanimously rejected the extension of the tenure of the presidency and Parliament from five to seven years, stating it was unconstitutional to amend the law without subjecting it to a referendum. This means that elections are due in 2021.

On the raid by security operatives who evicted mainly opposition MPs from Parliament during the age limit Bill debate last year, the judges said the conduct of lawmakers necessitated some intervention but condemned the handling of the incident by police.