Kasangaki Diana v Fulgensia Tumwesigye (Civil Application No. 21 of 2023)

Supreme Court · [2025] UGSC 27 · 2025 Application Granted ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Application by notice of motion for extension of time to file and serve the record of appeal and for validation of an intended third appeal to the Supreme Court

Decision

Application for extension of time allowed; Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 15 of 2023 validated and to be fixed for hearing

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 2 (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 granted an application for extension of time to file the record of appeal and validated the intended appeal. Exercising its unfettered but judicious discretion under Rule 5 of the Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions, the Court held that the applicant had shown sufficient cause: the registrar of the Court of Appeal took over two years and eight months to prepare the proceedings, a fault not attributable to the applicant, and the applicant was further incapacitated by the illness and surgery of her husband and her own sickness. The delay was adequately explained and not occasioned by inexcusable negligence; in the interest of substantive justice under Article 126(2)(e), the appeal was validated.

Facts

The applicant lost Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. 195 of 2013 and wished to lodge a third appeal to the Supreme Court. She obtained a certificate of great public or general importance and an extension of time to serve her notice of appeal. She filed a notice of appeal, stamped 6 October 2020, against a decision delivered on 15 September 2020, and wrote to the registrar of the Court of Appeal requesting the record of proceedings within 30 days. The registrar only availed the proceedings on 8 June 2023, more than two years and eight months later. The applicant filed a record of appeal in the Supreme Court on 13 June 2023 and served the respondent. The applicant attributed her failure to file within time to the illness and surgery of her husband in Switzerland and her own subsequent sickness. The respondent opposed the application, contending the affidavit contained falsehoods, that the letter requesting proceedings was never served, and that the appeal was incompetent for failure to take an essential step within the prescribed time.

Issues

Whether the applicant demonstrated sufficient cause to warrant an extension of time within which to file and serve the record of appeal.
Whether the applicant's intended appeal to the Supreme Court should be validated.

Orders

Application allowed.
The intended appeal, Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 15 of 2023, is validated and shall be fixed for hearing within the court schedule.
Costs of this application shall abide the outcome of the appeal.

Key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Extension of Time — Sufficient Cause under Rule 5 of the Supreme Court Rules

The power to extend time under Rule 5 of the Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions is an unfettered but judicial discretion, exercisable only where the applicant satisfies the court that there is sufficient cause for the delay, assessed on the circumstances of each case.

Civil Procedure — Extension of Time — Delay Attributable to the Registrar

Delay caused by the registrar of the Court of Appeal in preparing and delivering the record of proceedings cannot be visited upon the applicant, and time for instituting the appeal runs from the date the applicant receives the proceedings.

Civil Procedure — Appeals — Exclusion of Time under Rule 79(2) and Service Requirement under Rule 79(3)

An appellant has no automatic right to exclude registrar preparation time under Rule 79(2) where the written application for proceedings was not served on the respondent as required by Rule 79(3), but may nonetheless seek the court's intervention to extend time under Rule 5.

Civil Procedure — Substantive Justice — Article 126(2)(e) of the Constitution

Where adherence to a procedural technicality would have the effect of denying a party substantive justice, the court should invoke Article 126(2)(e) of the Constitution and decline to allow rules, as handmaidens of justice, to defeat the substance of the dispute.

Legislation cited (10)

Constitution of Uganda art.126(2)(e)
Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions S.I 13-11 r.79(1)
Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions S.I 13-11 r.79(2)
Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions S.I 13-11 r.79(3)
Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions S.I 13-11 r.5
Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions S.I 13-11 r.4(1)
Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.2(2)
Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.5
Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.40(1)
Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.41

Cases cited (9)

James Bwogi & Sons Enterprises Ltd v Kampala City Council & Another (Civil Appeal No. 9 of 2017)
Guliano Gariggo v Claudio Casadio (Civil Appeal No. 1 of 2013)
Crane Finance Co. Ltd v Makerere Properties (Civil Application No. 7 of 2007)
Tropical Africa Bank Ltd v Grace Were Muhwana [2012] UGSC 8
Kananura v Kaijuka (Civil Reference No. 15 of 2016) [2017] UGSC 17
Boney M. Katatumba v Waheed Karim [2008] UGSC 3
Rosette Kizito v Administrator General & Others (Civil Application No. 9 of 1986)
Mulindwa v Kisubika [2018] UGSC 38
Horizon Coaches Ltd v Edward Rurangaranga & Anor [2009] UGSC 7

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.