Akol v Attorney General (Civil Appeal No.073 of 2013)

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

Holding

The High Court struck out the appeal as incompetent because the order or decree appealed from was not extracted and included in the record of appeal. Under the Magistrates Courts Act s.220(1)(a), appeals to the High Court must be from decrees or orders, and without the appealed order being part of the record, the appeal could not proceed.

Outcome

Appeal struck out for being incompetent

Facts

The appellant filed Civil Suit 694 of 2008 at Mengo Chief Magistrate's Court claiming special damages of UGX 14,648,556, interest, general damages and costs. When the matter came up for hearing on 25 August, the suit was dismissed because both counsel and the plaintiff were absent from court. The appellant then filed Miscellaneous Application 993 of 2011 seeking to reinstate the suit, but this application was disallowed with costs to the respondent. The trial magistrate found that both the advocate and the applicant bore responsibility for going to the wrong court, noting that they could not have waited in a wrong court for over an hour. The appellant appealed against the dismissal of the application to reinstate.

Issues

1. Whether the appeal was competent without the order or decree appealed from forming part of the record of appeal.

Orders

• Appeal struck out as incompetent.
• No order as to costs.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (1)

• Magistrates Courts Act s.220(1)(a)

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.