Former Court of Appeal judge Dunstan Mwaungulu has questioned the Attorney General’s intervention in a court case involving Parliament, arguing that the dispute exposes deeper tensions over institutional independence.
The row centres on public disagreement between the Attorney General and Speaker of the National Assembly, Sameer Suleman, over who should represent Parliament in proceedings where it is a party.
Writing in a legal commentary, Mwaungulu said reports that the Attorney General had effectively replaced lawyers already on record for Parliament were hard to reconcile with the Speaker’s public statements.
“The Attorney General and the Speaker seem to be saying different things,” he said.
He argues that while the Constitution makes the Attorney General the government’s principal legal adviser, court cases involving public offices are governed by the Suits by and Against Government and Public Officers Act.
Under that law, Parliament had already retained lawyers to represent it, and those lawyers remain on record unless Parliament itself authorises a change.
“You do not change lawyers by force or by your position,” Mwaungulu wrote. “The litigant in the case, in this case Parliament, instructs the new counsel to change counsel.”
He questioned how the Attorney General could take over the case without instructions from Parliament, which available information suggests neither started nor agreed to the move.
Even where the Attorney General considers intervention necessary, he said, established practice requires consultation with the institution concerned.
Mwaungulu said he had previously argued that the Attorney General’s proper role would have been as a relator or proctor acting in the public interest, rather than taking a position at odds with Parliament’s legal strategy.
He warned that the Executive, through the Attorney General, appearing to challenge the Legislature in the courts risks undermining the doctrine of separation of powers.
“The Attorney General from the Executive Branch wants to oppose Parliament, the Legislature, in the Courts, the Judiciary,” he wrote. “That does not augur well for all of us and the Attorney General in particular.”
As Suleman continues to assert Parliament’s distinct position, the controversy has become a wider debate about institutional autonomy and the limits of public authority.
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