Commercial Court Division
in issue is international traffic, when under the UTL regime the code is a local
Ugandan code.
UTL.
Counsel for UTL submitted that the dispute did not involve the assignment of a
country code in the common sense of the word. He submitted that what happened
was that the GOSS requested the Government of Uganda to allow traffic destined to
or from its territory through Gemtel a licensed operator to use the country code of
Uganda +256 while it processed the application for its own code. Counsel for UTL
submitted that the Minister in Uganda stated that this was possible but only as
temporary measure. He submitted that this was a policy guideline from the Minister
to which UTL complied with and assigned one of its codes 477 to Gemtel.
Counsel for UTL submitted that this action was perfectly legal and valid.
In this
regard counsel for UTL referred me to the Constitution of The International
Telecommunications Union (hereinafter referred to as the “The ITU Constitution”)
which provides in its preamble that
“…while fully recognizing the sovereign right of each state to regulate
its telecommunications and having regard to the growing importance of
telecommunication for the preservation of peace and the economic and
social development of states … with the object of facilitating peaceful
relations, international cooperation among peoples and economic social
development by means of efficient telecommunication services …”
This preamble it was argued showed that the ITU Constitution is not intended to
interfere with sovereign rights.
Counsel for UTL further drew court’s attention to
Article 5,1 of the ITU Constitution which provides
“… Each member state reserves for itself and for the recognised
operating agencies the right to fix the conditions on which it admits
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