The High Court in Kampala has ruled that the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) has no powers to order the freezing of bank accounts of individuals or organisations suspected to be involved in terrorism \u00a0financing.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling comes on the heels of an order by FIA issued in November 2020, and directed to banks to freeze all accounts belonging to two non-governmental organisations- the Uganda Women\u2019s Network and the Uganda National NGO Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Esta Nambayo in her ruling held that it was irregular for FIA to freeze the bank accounts of the NGOs on mere suspicion that they financed terrorism activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn this case, therefore, I would find that the 1st respondent (FIA) committed an error of the law when it exercised its mandate of freezing the applicants\u2019 accounts without evidence leading to its satisfaction that the applicants were financing terrorist activities; and as such, its actions were illegal, ultra vires and irregular,\u201d Justice Nambayo ruled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is hereby declared that the decision by the 1st respondent \u00a0(FIA) directing the applicants\u2019 bankers to freeze, restrict or halt all withdraws or debits from the applicants\u2019 bank accounts was without reasonable suspicion to warrant an investigation into the allegations of terrorism financing,\u201d Justice Nambayo stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the Judge said that there must be a \u201cproper basis\u201d or \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d before the FIA orders the freezing of bank accounts and that the FIA must be in a position to present that information or circumstances to court in evidence -, if called upon, for court to see that there was genuine cause for its actions which the agency did not do. She order FIA to pay costs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The High Court in Kampala has ruled that the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) has no powers to order the freezing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[216,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court","category-national-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Nambayo.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2540,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/human-rights-lawyer-nicholas-opiyo-released-on-15m-bail\/","url_meta":{"origin":6687,"position":0},"title":"HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER NICHOLAS OPIYO RELEASED ON 15M BAIL","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"December 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Human Rights advocate Nicholas Opiyo has been released onUGshs.15M bail by the High Court of Uganda. 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