Wakilii

Bishop Balagadde Ssekadde and Others v Wamala and Others (Civil Appeal No. 0027 of 2011)

Court of Appeal · [2019] UGCA 2113 · 2019 Appeal Allowed — Retrial Ordered AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal from a High Court judgment in a land dispute concerning alleged fraudulent transfer and breach of trust
Decision
Trial court judgment set aside and matter remitted to the High Court for a re-trial

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 Court of Appeal held that the trial was incomplete and irregular because the trial judge, after a partly-oral hearing, ordered both parties to file affidavit evidence and then wrote judgment without calling witnesses or allowing cross-examination. Order 18 of the Civil Procedure Rules requires oral evidence in open court, and Order 19 rule 1 permits affidavit evidence only for particular facts and not where a party bona fide desires cross-examination. Since this was a matter in which cross-examination was necessary in the interests of justice, the procedure adopted violated Orders 18 and 19. The resultant judgment could not stand. The appeal was allowed and a retrial ordered, with costs abiding the outcome of the retrial.

Outcome

Trial court judgment set aside and matter remitted to the High Court for a re-trial

Facts

The respondents, as beneficiaries of the estate of the late Zubaili Sebulo, sued the appellants (administrators of the estate of the late E.N Serunjogi) seeking a declaration that the late Serunjogi fraudulently transferred land comprised in Kyadondo Block 194 into his names in breach of trust. The respondents alleged that Sebulo had deposited the duplicate certificate of title with Serunjogi for safe custody as close friends, and that Serunjogi later refused to return it and transferred the land to himself. The appellants asserted that Serunjogi had purchased the land for valuable consideration. The suit was partly heard orally before one judge who was subsequently transferred. On resumption before a successor judge, and following an unsuccessful attempt to settle, the successor judge directed both parties to file affidavit evidence and then delivered judgment for the respondents, finding fraud and breach of trust, ordering cancellation of Serunjogi's registration and awarding UGX 5,000,000 general damages plus costs. The appellants appealed.

Issues

  1. Whether the case in the trial court was heard and determined in accordance with the law governing the conduct of civil trials.
  2. Whether a civil trial may be conducted wholly on affidavit evidence where cross-examination of witnesses was necessary.

Orders

  • Appeal allowed.
  • Judgment of the trial court set aside.
  • A re-trial ordered.
  • Costs below to abide the outcome of the re-trial.
  • Each party to bear its own costs of the appeal.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Conduct of Trial — Requirement of Oral Evidence in Open Court
A civil trial must be conducted by taking the oral evidence of witnesses in open court under Order 18 of the Civil Procedure Rules; a whole trial cannot be conducted solely on affidavit evidence.
Civil Procedure — Affidavit Evidence — Limits under Order 19 Rule 1
Order 19 rule 1 of the Civil Procedure Rules permits proof of particular facts by affidavit, but no order authorising affidavit evidence may be made where a party bona fide desires the production of a witness for cross-examination and that witness can be produced.
Civil Procedure — Successor Judge — Powers under Order 18 Rule 11
Where a judge is prevented by death, transfer or other cause from concluding a trial, the successor judge may proceed from the stage at which the predecessor left it under Order 18 rule 11(1), but must still conduct a full and proper oral trial.
Civil Procedure — Witness Statements — Adoption and Cross-Examination at Hearing
Where witness statements are filed before hearing, they must be adopted in court by the witnesses in person to form their examination in chief, followed by cross-examination; a judgment based on filed statements without an oral hearing is irregular.

Legislation cited (11)

Cases cited (14)

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Bishop Balagadde Ssekadde and Others v Wamala and Others (Civil Appeal No. 0027 of 2011) [2019] UGCA 2113 (2 December 2019)
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.