Wakilii

Ekisa & Anor v Bank of Africa (U) Ltd & Ors (Miscellaneous Application No. 29 of 2017)

High Court · [2017] UGCOMMC 151 · 2017 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for leave to appeal against a ruling dismissing an earlier application for judgment on admission, arising from a civil suit concerning bank deposit charges
Decision
Application for leave to appeal dismissed; main suit to proceed to hearing

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

Held that leave to appeal is refused where the applicants fail to demonstrate arguable points of law arising from the court's ruling. The grounds raised by the applicants addressed matters not yet determined in the main suit rather than controversies decided in the ruling they sought to appeal. The court found that admissions by the respondents were to the fact of charging bank charges, not to the illegality of those charges, and therefore were insufficient to warrant judgment on admission under Order 13 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

Outcome

Application for leave to appeal dismissed; main suit to proceed to hearing

Facts

The applicants, representing themselves and 50,000 others, sued 21 banks for recovery of bank deposit charges. When the matter came up for hearing, the applicants' counsel applied for judgment on admission, arguing that the respondent banks had admitted to charging bank deposit charges. The High Court dismissed that application on 19 December 2016, finding that the admissions made were insufficient to warrant judgment on admission. The applicants then applied for leave to appeal that ruling and for a stay of proceedings in the main suit. The respondents opposed the application, arguing that it was an abuse of process intended to delay the main suit, that no unequivocal admissions had been made, and that the grounds raised were not matters decided in the ruling but issues yet to be tried in the main suit.

Issues

  1. Whether the applicants have arguable points of law with merit sufficient to warrant leave to appeal the ruling dismissing their application for judgment on admission.
  2. Whether the proceedings in the main suit should be stayed pending the determination of the intended appeal.

Orders

  • Application for leave to appeal the ruling in Miscellaneous Application No. 632 of 2015 dismissed.
  • Application to stay proceedings does not arise.
  • Main suit to be set down for hearing.
  • Costs of this application shall be in the cause.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Leave to Appeal — Test for Granting Leave
Leave to appeal from an order in civil proceedings will normally be granted where prima facie it appears that there are grounds of appeal which merit serious judicial consideration. Where the order from which it is sought to appeal was made in the exercise of judicial discretion, a rather stronger case must be made out.
Civil Procedure — Leave to Appeal — Requirement to Demonstrate Arguable Points from the Ruling
To succeed in an application for leave to appeal, the applicant must demonstrate arguable points of law arising from the ruling itself. The applicant cannot seek to appeal matters that were not in controversy before the court and which the court did not determine in the ruling.
Civil Procedure — Judgment on Admission — Distinction Between Admission to a Fact and Admission to a Claim
For a court to enter judgment on admission under Order 13 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the admissions must be in regard to the claim itself, not merely to a fact in the pleadings. An admission that bank charges are levied is an admission to a fact, but not an admission to the claim that such charges are illegal.

Legislation cited (4)

Cases cited (2)

  • Sango Bay v Dresdner Bank [1971] EA 17
  • Ayebazibwe v Barclays Bank Uganda Ltd and 3 Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 292 of 2014)

Full judgment

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

Ekisa & Anor v Bank of Africa (U) Ltd & Ors (Miscellaneous Application No. 29 of 2017) [2017] UGCommC 151 (13 September 2017)
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.