Oryem Richard and Anor v Uganda [2003] UGSC 30

Supreme Court · 2003 Appeal Partly Allowed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Second criminal appeal to the Supreme Court from the Court of Appeal's affirmation of a High Court conviction for robbery

Decision

Convictions for robbery upheld; the sentence of corporal punishment set aside as unconstitutional, with the remainder of each sentence confirmed.

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions — always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

The Supreme Court dismissed both appellants' appeals against conviction for robbery. The first appellant's charge and caution statement was voluntarily made and rightly admitted; his guilt was established by the doctrine of recent possession of stolen goods combined with his confession. The Court of Appeal's reliance on section 29A of the Evidence Act was a misdirection, but harmless, because under section 28 a co-accused's confession may lawfully supplement substantial evidence; the second appellant's conviction rested on the eyewitness recent-possession evidence, not the confession alone. The Court allowed the appeal against the mandatory corporal punishment imposed under section 274A of the Penal Code Act, holding it inconsistent with Article 24 of the Constitution, and set that sentence aside.

Facts

On the night of 22 August 1998 assailants broke into the home of Mutebi Ahmed, threatened violence, and stole a motorcycle, a radio cassette, a jerry can of petrol and shs.100,000. The eyewitnesses could not recognise the robbers. Two days later, on 24 August 1998, police acting on a tip-off found the first appellant, Oryem, attempting to sell the stolen motorcycle, which lacked its number plates and registration book, at a garage in Nyendo. He admitted participation, led police to recover the stolen radio cassette from his home, and on 25 August 1998 made a charge and caution statement confessing to the robbery and implicating the second appellant, Nayebale. A neighbour, Namakula Josephine, testified that early on 23 August 1998 she saw Nayebale riding a numberless motorcycle resembling the stolen one, which he had not been seen with before. The first appellant alleged the confession was obtained by torture; medical examination on 27 August 1998 and the timing of the alleged injuries undermined that claim.

Issues

Whether the first appellant's charge and caution statement was voluntarily made and properly admitted in evidence.
Whether the doctrine of possession of recently stolen goods, together with the confession, sufficiently linked the first appellant to the robbery.
Whether a co-accused's confession could form the basis of the second appellant's conviction under section 28 of the Evidence Act.
Whether the mandatory sentence of corporal punishment under section 274A of the Penal Code Act contravenes Article 24 of the Constitution.

Orders

The appellants' appeals against their convictions are dismissed.
The appeal against the sentence of corporal punishment is allowed and that sentence is set aside.
The rest of the sentence imposed on each of the appellants is confirmed.

Key headnotes

Confessions — Retracted or repudiated confession — Basis for conviction

A court may convict on a retracted or repudiated confession where it finds corroboration, or where it appropriately cautions itself against the danger of relying on such a confession.

Circumstantial evidence — Doctrine of possession of recently stolen goods

Possession of recently stolen property shortly after a robbery, coupled with conduct such as attempting to sell it without registration documents or plates, supports an inference of participation in the robbery, and any doubt between thief and receiver may be resolved by the accused's own confession.

Section 29A Evidence Act — Information leading to discovery of fact

Section 29A of the Evidence Act admits only so much of the information received from an accused as relates distinctly to a fact discovered in consequence of it; a confession recorded after the relevant property has already been recovered does not fall within the section.

Section 28 Evidence Act — Confession of co-accused

Where co-accused are jointly tried, a confession by one implicating another cannot found the conviction of that other; under section 28 of the Evidence Act it may only supplement substantial evidence against the co-accused, and it is weaker than accomplice evidence because it is made in the co-accused's absence and untested by cross-examination.

Article 24 — Corporal punishment under section 274A Penal Code Act

The sentence of corporal punishment imposed under section 274A of the Penal Code Act is inconsistent with Article 24 of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, and must be set aside.

Robbery — Proof of use of a deadly weapon

Where a witness testifies that an assailant produced a gun, pointed it and fired during a robbery, that constitutes sufficient proof of use of the gun unless discredited; the law does not require the witness to describe the weapon exactly or to prove the gunshot came from that weapon.

Legislation cited (6)

Evidence Act s.24
Evidence Act s.25
Evidence Act s.28
Evidence Act s.29A
Penal Code Act s.274A
Constitution of Uganda Article 24

Cases cited (4)

Gopa and others v R (1953) 20 EACA 318
Ezra Kyabanamaizi and others v R (1962) EA 309
Kyamanywa Simon v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 16 of 1999)
Constitutional Reference No. 10 of 2000

Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.