Bogere & Anor v Uganda (Criminal Appeal 39 of 2016)

Supreme Court · [2018] UGSC 9 · 2018 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Second criminal appeal from the Court of Appeal's confirmation of a High Court conviction and sentence for aggravated robbery

Decision

Appeal dismissed; appellants to continue serving the 20-year sentence of imprisonment.

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

On a second appeal against an aggravated robbery conviction and a 20-year sentence, the Supreme Court upheld the respondent's preliminary objection and dismissed the conviction ground, holding that a ground of appeal not raised before and considered by the Court of Appeal cannot be raised for the first time on second appeal; the Court of Appeal cannot be faulted on a matter never before it. On sentence, both the trial judge and the Court of Appeal had in fact considered the remand period, and the Court of Appeal could not be faulted for not following Rwabugande Moses v Uganda, which was decided after its judgment. The appeal was dismissed in its entirety.

Facts

The two appellants were tried and convicted by the High Court of aggravated robbery contrary to sections 285 and 286(2) of the Penal Code Act, and each sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. With leave, they appealed to the Court of Appeal against sentence only. The Court of Appeal dismissed that appeal and ordered each appellant to continue serving the 20-year sentence. On further appeal to the Supreme Court, the appellants sought to challenge both the sufficiency of the evidence supporting their conviction and the sentence, contending that the one year and six months they had spent on remand had not been deducted. The conviction issue had not been raised before the Court of Appeal, which had dealt only with sentence.

Issues

Whether the appellants could raise insufficiency of evidence (and so challenge their conviction) on second appeal to the Supreme Court when that issue was never raised before, or considered by, the Court of Appeal.
Whether the Court of Appeal erred in confirming the 20-year sentence by failing to deduct the period the appellants spent on remand.

Orders

Preliminary objection upheld and ground one of the appeal dismissed.
The whole appeal dismissed.
The appellants to continue serving the sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

Key headnotes

Criminal Procedure — Second Appeals — Raising a Ground Not Considered by the Court of Appeal

A ground of appeal that was not raised before, and considered by, the Court of Appeal cannot be raised for the first time on a second appeal to the Supreme Court; the Court of Appeal cannot be faulted on a matter that was never before it.

Criminal Procedure — Sentencing — Deduction of Remand Period

Where the record shows that both the trial court and the first appellate court in fact considered the period an accused spent on remand in arriving at the sentence, an appellate court will not interfere; a court cannot be faulted for not following a later decision requiring deduction of remand that was delivered after its judgment.

Appellate Procedure — Amendment of Memorandum of Appeal — Rule 17 of the Rules of the Supreme Court

A new ground of appeal must be introduced by amending the Memorandum of Appeal in accordance with Rule 17 of the Rules of the Supreme Court after obtaining leave; embedding a new ground within written submissions without obtaining leave is irregular, though the court may overlook such an irregularity in the interest of justice under Article 126(2) of the Constitution and Rule 2(2).

Legislation cited (5)

Penal Code Act s.285
Penal Code Act s.286(2)
Constitution of Uganda Article 126(2)
Rules of the Supreme Court Rule 17
Rules of the Supreme Court Rule 2(2)

Cases cited (4)

Rwabugande Moses v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 25 of 2014)
Twinomugisha Alex alias Twine Patrick Kwezi & John Sanyu Katuramu v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 35 of 2002)
Teddy Ssezi Cheeye v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 32 of 2010)
Abelle Asuman v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 66 of 2016)

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.