Wakilii

Aliku AA Henry and Others v Jokindua Nason Salim Achio and Others (Civil Appeal No. 41 of 2019)

High Court · [2025] UGHC 968 · 2025 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal from Chief Magistrate's Court judgment
Decision
Appeal struck out as incompetent for being filed out of time

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.

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 High Court struck out the appeal as incompetent for being filed four months and twelve days out of time. The memorandum of appeal was due by 12 February 2020 (accounting for Christmas vacation) but was filed on 23 June 2020. The appellants neither sought an extension of time nor advanced reasons for the delay. Section 79 of the Civil Procedure Act is mandatory and an appeal filed out of time without a court order is not properly before the court.

Outcome

Appeal struck out as incompetent for being filed out of time

Facts

The appellants appealed a judgment of the Chief Magistrate's Court of Arua delivered on 20 December 2019. The memorandum of appeal was lodged in the High Court on 23 June 2020. Section 79 of the Civil Procedure Act requires appeals to be filed within thirty days of the decree or order. Accounting for the Christmas vacation period (24 December to 15 January) under Order 51 Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the appeal should have been filed by 12 February 2020. The appellants filed four months and twelve days late without seeking an extension of time or providing reasons for the delay.

Issues

  1. Whether the appeal was filed within the time prescribed by section 79 of the Civil Procedure Act.
  2. Whether the court should exercise its discretion to extend time for filing the appeal.

Orders

  • Appeal struck out.
  • Costs awarded to the Respondents.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Appeals — Time Limits — Mandatory Compliance with Section 79 Civil Procedure Act
Section 79 of the Civil Procedure Act, which requires appeals to be filed within thirty days of the decree or order, is mandatory and must be strictly complied with.
Civil Procedure — Appeals — Time Computation — Christmas Vacation Exclusion
When computing time for filing an appeal, the period between 24 December and 15 January (Christmas vacation) must be excluded from the calculation pursuant to Order 51 Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Rules.
Civil Procedure — Appeals — Competence — Effect of Filing Out of Time
An appeal filed out of time without an order of court extending time is incompetent and not properly before the court, and there exists no appeal at all.
Civil Procedure — Limitation — Strict Application — Purpose of Statutes of Limitation
Statutes of limitation are strict and inflexible enactments whose overriding purpose is that litigations shall be automatically stifled after a fixed length of time, irrespective of the merits of a particular case.

Legislation cited (2)

Cases cited (2)

  • Ssekazi Godfrey v Kyeyune David (Civil Appeal No. 109 of 2015)
  • Re Application of Mustapha Ramathan (Civil Appeal No. 25 of 1996)

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Aliku AA Henry and Others v Jokindua Nason Salim Achio and Others (Civil Appeal No. 41 of 2019) [2025] UGHC 968 (4 September 2025)
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.