President Yoweri Museveni’s chairmanship of the East African Community faces a legitimacy test as two years of tumultuous domestic politics spill over into the regional bloc.

Fred Mukasa Mbidde, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) says he is going to petition the assembly at its next sitting later this month to declare Museveni’s recent actions in Uganda where he has clashed with his parliament, incompatible with his status as the bloc’s chair.

“When we meet in  Bujumbura on January 20, we could seek a resolution that declares his actions as unlawful and that may imply he has to relinquish his chairmanship,” Mr Mbidde said. 

President Museveni assumed the regional body’s rotational chair at its Summit in Nairobi last November.

READ: Is Museveni planning to be ‘King of Africa’?

Mr Mbidde said already his Democratic Party had a petition to force partner states to deposit declarations that would enable citizens of the regional bloc implore the African Court of Justice (ACJ) on matters of governance, and the Uganda scenario would be used as evidence to bolster their case.

Citizens whose countries have not deposited a declaration submitting to its jurisdiction cannot petition the ACJ on issues of human rights and governance.

Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi are signatories to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which creates the court but their governments have not deposited the necessary declarations for full submission to enable their citizens petition the court. 

Mr Mbidde said if his party’s case is successful, Ugandans would be at liberty to revoke the governance and human rights excesses of their government at the ACJ.

President Museveni has been on the offensive against parliament since the botched investigations into the death of Butaleja Woman MP Cerinah Nebanda who died under questionable circumstances on December 20, 2012.

READ: Museveni ‘meddling’ fuel backlash of Nebanda’s death

Police stopped  Dr Sylvester Onzivua, a pathologist commissioned by parliament to investigate the death from proceeding with the deceased’s body samples to South Africa for medical investigation. 

Some MPs involved in the matter were questioned and have been charged for statements they made, bordering on imputing government complicity in the death of Ms Nebanda.

Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga dismissed a police report on the matter. 

A report of the forensic investigations commissioned by the police with the UK’s Roar Forensics Ltd indicated the deceased had died of narcotic drugs including cocaine, but critics insist the 24-year-old MP was poisoned.

Two of the MPs dismissing the government reports — Muhamad Nsereko, MP Kampala Central, and Dr Chris Baryomunsi, MP Kinkizi East, both of the ruling NRM party — have already been charged, while others are still eluding the police.

The president was so incensed by the MPs insinuation of government culpability in the death, that he called them “fools, buffoons and idiots,” in parliament.

READ: Nebanda death: Museveni angered by accusations

Angered by the president’s name calling, which they called an affront to the dignity and independence of the House, some MPs last week launched a campaign to collect over 125 signatures to force a recall of the House for a special session to discuss the president’s statements.

Museveni meets Speaker

The president meanwhile early this week held a meeting with the House Speaker to say the House recall will not happen and instead summoned his party MPs to a retreat in Kyankwanzi, a town in central Uganda, a move seen by observers as an attempt to assert his authority over parliament and the ruling party.

With his critics collecting the required number of signatures for recalling the House, observers say the Speaker has no alternative but to comply, lest the country faces a constitutional crisis. 

But the government insists, MPs who committed crimes are trying to use parliamentary privilege to escape prosecution.

An emotive meeting to defuse the disagreement between the Executive and the House aborted on January 3, with the Speaker who disagreed with his deputy Jacob Oullanyah insisting that the recall of parliament was a constitutional matter above her powers. 

The House and the Executive have been accusing each another of failing to respect their respective constitutional territory.

READ: State, parliament set for showdown

The government side headed by Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi at the Thursday talks insisted that the Speaker has to toe the ruling party line.

The whole episode has played out as a domestic affair but Mr Mbidde says it will become a regional and international one if the president doesn’t restrain himself.

In a letter to President Museveni, Mr Mbidde said that the former contravened Articles 6 (d) and 7 (2) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community Treaty.

According to the law

Article 6(d) provides “The fundamental principles that shall govern the achievement of the objectives of the community by the partner states shall include, good governance including adherence of the principles of democracy, the rule of law, accountability, transparency, social justice, equal opportunities, gender equality as well as the recognition, promotion and protection of human and people’s rights in accordance with the provision of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

Article 7(2) adds, “The Partner states undertake to abide by the Principles of good governance, including adherence to the Principles of democracy, the rule of law, Social Justice, and the Maintenance of Universally accepted standards of human Rights.”

“In the event of continuity of aforesaid illegal acts either by you or those on your behalf, we shall have no other remedy Mr President than to invoke all the necessary national and regional legal machinery for the enforcement of the same ...,” says Mr Mbidde’s letter.

However, the presidential spokesman Tamale Mirundi said they were ready for any court battles. “I don’t think there’s an institution that cannot be challenged. We cannot allow impunity through abuse of parliamentary privilege.

The president created these institutions and any one of them cannot be used to abuse the rest under any pretext,” said Mr Mirundi.