Baluku & Anor v Uganda (Criminal Appeal 21 of 2014)

Supreme Court · [2018] UGSC 26 · 2018 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Second criminal appeal to the Supreme Court from a Court of Appeal decision upholding conviction and sentence for abuse of office

Decision

Appeal dismissed; conviction and four-year sentences for abuse of office confirmed, together with the ten-year bar from holding public office

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Treatment recorded in citing cases followed in 1 · applied in 1 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 a second appeal against conviction for abuse of office. Although the identification parades were irregularly conducted, this did not occasion injustice because the appellants were positively identified at the scene in broad daylight by witnesses in close proximity, and other evidence connected them to the offence. PW2, PW3 and PW6 were not accomplices: as non-employees of the Police they could not commit abuse of office under section 11(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act, so corroboration was not required. The inconsistency in the colour of the first appellant's uniform was immaterial, his presence and participation in sharing the recovered money being proved. The conviction, sentences and ten-year bar from public office were confirmed.

Facts

On 6 July 2010 a bag containing UGX 210,000,000 was snatched from an employee of Comdel Forex Bureau by PW6, who fled on a boda boda. A mob pursued PW6 to a house in Komamboga, Kawempe. The local council chairman, fearing mob justice, called the first appellant, the officer in charge of the local police post. Police led by the first appellant entered the room, apprehended PW6 and found the bag of money tucked under a baby cot. The prosecution case was that the appellants, instead of securing the money, shared it among themselves before taking the suspect to Kawempe Police Station where a false motorcycle-theft report was made. An internal police investigation found the appellants had recovered the money and failed to declare it. They were indicted for abuse of office contrary to section 11(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act 2009, convicted by the High Court and sentenced to four years' imprisonment, a result upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Issues

Whether the Court of Appeal erred in finding that the case did not require an identification parade.
Whether PW2, PW3 and PW6 were accomplices whose evidence required corroboration before it could ground the conviction for abuse of office.
Whether the inconsistency in the colour of the uniform worn by the first appellant was a minor discrepancy that did not affect the conviction.

Orders

Appeal against conviction dismissed.
Conviction and sentences imposed by the Court of Appeal confirmed.
Order barring the appellants from holding any public office for 10 years from the date of conviction (18 August 2011) confirmed.

Key headnotes

Criminal Evidence — Identification — Identification Parade — Effect of Irregular Conduct

Where other evidence sufficiently connects an accused person with the offence, the failure to hold an identification parade, or its irregular conduct, is not fatal to the conviction and occasions no injustice.

Criminal Evidence — Identification — Conduct of Identification Parade — Governing Rules

An identification parade must comply with the rules enunciated in R v Mwango s/o Manaa, including that the accused be informed of the right to a friend or solicitor, that the officer in charge of the case not conduct it, that witnesses not see the accused beforehand, and that the accused be placed among at least eight persons of similar appearance and be allowed to change position.

Criminal Evidence — Identification — Necessity of Parade — Witness Familiar With or Identifying Suspect at Scene

An identification parade is unnecessary where the witness already knows the suspect, or where the identification was made at the scene under favourable conditions such as daylight, close proximity and ample time to observe.

Criminal Evidence — Accomplices — Definition — Participation in the Offence Charged

A witness is an accomplice only if he participated, as a principal or accessory, in the very offence that is the subject of the trial; a witness who could not in law commit the offence charged is not an accomplice.

Criminal Law — Abuse of Office — Ingredients — Employment in a Public Body

The offence of abuse of office under section 11(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act 2009 can only be committed by a person employed in a public body who does an arbitrary act prejudicial to the employer's interests in abuse of the authority of office; persons outside that employment cannot be principals or accomplices to it.

Criminal Evidence — Accomplice Evidence — Corroboration — Statutory and Judicial Practice

Section 132 of the Evidence Act does not require corroboration of accomplice evidence, but as a matter of judicial practice corroboration is required and a court relying on uncorroborated accomplice evidence must caution itself on the danger of doing so where the evidence is found trustworthy.

Criminal Evidence — Inconsistencies — Minor Discrepancies — Second Appeal Interference with Concurrent Findings

Only a grave, unexplained inconsistency, or one pointing to deliberate untruthfulness, will lead to rejection of a witness's evidence; a second appellate court will not interfere with concurrent findings of fact of the two lower courts unless they were grossly wrong or applied wrong principles of law.

Legislation cited (5)

Anti-Corruption Act 2009 s.11(1)
Penal Code Act s.254(1)
Penal Code Act s.261
Penal Code Act s.19(1)
Evidence Act Cap 6 s.132

Cases cited (18)

Kifamunte Henry v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 10 of 1997)
Davies v Director of Public Prosecutions [1954] 1 All ER 507
R v Baskerville (1916) 2 KB 658
Obeli v Uganda [1965] EA 622
Mushikoma Watete alias Peter Wakhoka and 3 Others v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 10 of 2000)
Bogere Moses and Another v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 1 of 1997)
R v Mwango s/o Manaa [1936] 3 EACA 29
Ssentale v Uganda [1968] EA 365
Stephen Mugume v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 20 of 1995)
Baguma Fred v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 7 of 2004)
Pandya v R [1957] EA 336
Kakooza Godfrey v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 3 of 2008)
Mulindwa Samuel v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 41 of 2000)
Nasolo v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 14 of 2000)
Khetem v R [1956] EA 563
Sarapio Tinkamalirwe v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 27 of 1989)
Emmanuel Nsubuga v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 16 of 1998)
Salongo Senoga Sentumbwe v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 3 of 2014)

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.