Wakilii

Attorney General v Uganda Blanket Manufacturers (Civil Application 17 of 1993)

Supreme Court · [1993] UGSC 13 · 1993 Reference Partly Allowed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Reference to a single judge under Rule 109 from the Registrar's taxation of costs in Civil Appeal No. 15 of 1992
Decision
Reference partly allowed; instructions fee reduced from shs 200 million to shs 50 million and the total bill of costs reduced to shs 57,092,100.

Observed later treatment

Treatment recorded in citing cases followed in 2 · applied in 2 Sequitur — Uganda’s citator · Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

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.

Good law Followed in 2 cases and applied in 2 cases, with no adverse treatment recorded. Citations steady — 26 citing cases on record, 6 in the most recent three data years. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.

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 reference under Rule 109, the Supreme Court held the Currency Reform Statute 1987 had no relevance because the valuation report already expressed values in the new currency; the taxing officer correctly found the Government benefited, properly distinguished Herman Semujju, and did not err by stating only an approximate subject-matter value. However, the instructions fee of shs 200 million was so manifestly excessive as to indicate an error of principle. The court reduced it to shs 50 million, reduced the C.T.L. from shs 30 million to shs 7.5 million, and reduced the total bill from shs 230,092,100 to shs 57,092,100.

Outcome

Reference partly allowed; instructions fee reduced from shs 200 million to shs 50 million and the total bill of costs reduced to shs 57,092,100.

Facts

The respondent had succeeded in Civil Appeal No. 15 of 1992, in which this court declared it entitled to possession of business premises taken over by the Government in 1987, ordered an account of its business, and awarded general damages and costs of the appeal and the court below. Pursuant to that order, Arno Matovu & Co. prepared a statement of account valuing the respondent's assets at about shs 2.87 billion, which the taxing officer accepted as the value of the subject matter. The Registrar, sitting as taxing officer, taxed the respondent's bill of costs at shs 230,092,100, of which shs 200,000,000 was allowed as the instructions fee. The Attorney General brought this reference challenging principally the instructions fee on five grounds, including the relevance of the Currency Reform Statute, the value of the subject matter, and that the award was manifestly excessive.

Issues

  1. Whether the Currency Reform Statute 1987 applied so as to require reduction of the valuation used to assess the instructions fee.
  2. Whether the taxing officer erred in holding that the Government benefited from its actions so as to justify costs payable from public funds.
  3. Whether the taxing officer should have followed Herman Semujju v Attorney General in assessing the instructions fee.
  4. Whether the taxing officer erred in treating the value of the subject matter as about 3 billion shillings without arriving at an exact figure.
  5. Whether the bill of costs as taxed, in particular the instructions fee of shs 200 million, was in all the circumstances manifestly excessive.

Orders

  • Grounds one to four of the reference fail; the fifth ground succeeds.
  • The instructions fee is reduced from shs 200,000,000 to shs 50,000,000.
  • The C.T.L. award is reduced from shs 30,000,000 to shs 7,500,000, being 15% of the instructions fee awarded.
  • The total bill of costs is reduced from shs 230,092,100 to shs 57,092,100.
  • The applicant shall have the costs of this reference.

Rules and key headnotes

Costs — Taxation — Reference under Rule 109 — Permissible grounds
A reference on taxation may be made to the court only on a matter of law or principle, or on the ground that the bill as taxed is in all the circumstances manifestly excessive or manifestly inadequate; save as so provided, there is no reference on a question of quantum alone.
Costs — Instructions Fee — Assessment in the Supreme Court
Unlike in the High Court, where the instructions fee follows a scale tied to the value of the subject matter, the instructions fee in the Supreme Court is assessed in the discretion of the taxing officer having regard to the factors in para 9(2) and (3) of the Third Schedule, of which the value of the subject matter is only one.
Costs — Manifestly Excessive Award — Inference of Error of Principle
Where an award of costs is so manifestly excessive as to indicate that it must have been arrived at unjudicially or on an erroneous principle, the court may interfere even in the absence of an express error of law or principle.
Costs — Public Interest — Reasonable Level of Costs
While a successful litigant ought to be fairly reimbursed, a taxing officer owes a duty to the public to ensure that costs do not rise above a reasonable level so as to deny access to the courts to all but the wealthy, balanced against the need to remunerate advocates sufficiently to attract worthy practitioners.
Costs — Consistency of Awards — Comparable Cases
There must, so far as practicable, be consistency in awards of costs so that a litigant may be advised of likely liability; but consistency requires comparison with cases of similar subject matter and value, and a precedent costs award is not to be followed where its facts and subject matter differ materially.
Currency Reform Statute 1987 — Application to valuations expressed in new currency
The Currency Reform Statute 1987 does not operate to convert figures in a valuation that already expresses values in the new currency; pre-1987 valuations are irrelevant to determining the current value of assets for the purpose of assessing instructions fees.

Legislation cited (6)

  • Rules of the Supreme Court r.109
  • Rules of the Supreme Court Third Schedule para 9(2)
  • Rules of the Supreme Court Third Schedule para 9(3)
  • Currency Reform Statute 1987 s.1(b)
  • Currency Reform Statute 1987 s.2
  • Advocates (Remuneration and Taxation of Costs) Rules 1982 (SI No. 123 of 1982)

Cases cited (9)

  • Herman Semujju v Attorney General (Civil Appeal No. 8 of 1991)
  • Premchand Raichand Ltd v Quarry Services Ltd (1972) EA 162
  • Premchand Raichand Ltd v Quarry Services Ltd (No.3) (1972) EA 192
  • Arthur v Nyeri Electricity Undertaking (1961) EA 492
  • Khatijabal Jiwa Hshjam vs. Zanab (1957) EA 255
  • Pardhan v Osman (1969) EA 528
  • Nanyuki Esso Service v Touring & Sports Cars Ltd (1972) EA 500
  • Steel Petroleum v Uganda Sugar Factory (1970) EA 141
  • Haider Bin Mohamed Elmandry v Khadija Binti Ali Bin Salem (1959) EACA 313

Cases citing this judgment (24)

How later Ugandan judgments in the Wakilii corpus have cited this case. Treatment labels come from Sequitur — Uganda’s citator — each backed by a verbatim span from the citing judgment, and are not an assertion that this case is, or is not, good law.

Full judgment

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Attorney General v Uganda Blanket Manufacturers (Civil Application 17 of 1993) [1993] UGSC 13 (14 December 1993)
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.