Ham Enterprises Ltd and 2 Others v Diamond Trust Bank (U) Ltd (Civil Application No. 313 of 2020)

Observed later treatment

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 Court of Appeal dismissed an application for leave to appeal against the Principal Judge's order staying execution pending appeal. The Court held the application was moot because the stay order had lapsed when the appeal was fixed for hearing. The Court further held that, even on the merits, the application was misconceived: there is only one High Court in Uganda, and any High Court Judge has jurisdiction to hear any matter, with files capable of being reallocated between Judges by the Principal Judge, Heads of Division, Registrars or appellate order. The associated Civil Appeal No. 313 of 2020 was likewise dismissed as overtaken by events, with no order as to costs.

Outcome

Application and associated Civil Appeal No. 313 of 2020 dismissed as moot/overtaken by events, with no order as to costs

Facts

The applicants sought leave to appeal against a ruling of the Principal Judge dated 2 November 2020 in High Court Miscellaneous Application No. 846 of 2020. In that application, the Principal Judge granted the respondents a stay of execution of the judgment and decree of Justice Henry Adonyo in High Court Civil Suit No. 43 of 2020, pending an appeal to the Court of Appeal. By the time the leave application came up for hearing, the stay order had lapsed because the appeal it referred to had been fixed for hearing on that same day. The applicants challenged the legality and propriety of the proceedings, ruling and orders of the Principal Judge, contending in part that the matter ought not to have been before him.

Issues

1. Whether the application for leave to appeal should be entertained where the underlying stay of execution order had lapsed and the appeal had been fixed for hearing.
2. Whether the grounds challenging the Principal Judge's jurisdiction to handle the matter were misconceived.

Orders

• Application dismissed with no order as to costs.
• Civil Appeal No. 313 of 2020 also dismissed for having been overtaken by events.
• No order as to costs in the appeal.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (1)

• Rules of the Court of Appeal Rule 2(1)

Cases citing this judgment (1)

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.

• Multiple ICD(U) Limited v Jaco Commercial Agencies Limited (Civil Appeal No.125 of 2020)

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