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Heritage Oil and Gas Limited v Uganda Revenue Authority (Civil Appeal No. 264 of 2018)

Court of Appeal · [2020] UGCA 2080 · 2020 Appeal Struck Out AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal to the Court of Appeal from a conferencing ruling of the High Court sitting on appeal from the Tax Appeals Tribunal
Decision
Appeal struck out as incompetent with costs to the respondent

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) 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.

No adverse treatment recorded Cited 1 time with no adverse treatment recorded; not yet tested on the merits. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.
Judicial journey

Appeal & case history

2 linked decisions

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Court of Appeal This decision
Heritage Oil and Gas Limited v Uganda Revenue Authority (Civil Appeal No. 264 of 2018) [2020] UGCA 2080 (23 June 2020)
[2020] UGCA 2080
Outcome not classified Read the higher decision to confirm the precise result.
Supreme Court decision located in the Wakilii corpus. Linked from court records and operative language in the judgments.

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 struck out the appeal as incompetent. Appellate jurisdiction is a creature of statute. Section 27 of the Tax Appeals Tribunal Act confers a right of appeal from the Tribunal to the High Court on points of law only, and is silent on any further appeal to the Court of Appeal. Section 101 of the Income Tax Act, which permits appeal to the Court of Appeal with leave, applies only where a taxpayer elected to appeal directly to the High Court under section 100(1)(a), not where review was sought from the Tribunal. There was also no certificate of great public importance, and the conferencing direction declining to strike out skeleton arguments was not an appealable order.

Outcome

Appeal struck out as incompetent with costs to the respondent

Facts

Heritage Oil & Gas Limited applied to the Tax Appeals Tribunal for review of an income tax assessment of US$404,925,000 (and a further assessment) raised by Uganda Revenue Authority. The Tribunal dismissed the applications. Heritage appealed to the High Court under section 27 of the Tax Appeals Tribunal Act in consolidated appeals. At a scheduling conference, the parties filed skeleton arguments, and Heritage objected to certain paragraphs of URA's skeleton arguments. The appellate High Court Judge declined to strike out the impugned paragraphs and directed the parties to confine themselves to the points of law raised in the appeal. Heritage, aggrieved by this conferencing ruling, lodged a notice of appeal and an appeal to the Court of Appeal, seeking to have the paragraphs struck out. URA objected to the competence of the appeal on the ground that no right of appeal lay to the Court of Appeal from a High Court decision on appeal from the Tax Appeals Tribunal.

Issues

  1. Whether there is a statutory right of appeal to the Court of Appeal from a decision of the High Court made on appeal from a decision of the Tax Appeals Tribunal.
  2. Whether the conferencing ruling declining to strike out parts of the respondent's skeleton arguments was an appealable order.
  3. Whether the appeal was competent before the Court of Appeal.

Orders

  • The appeal is struck out for being incompetent.
  • Costs awarded against the appellant.

Rules and key headnotes

Tax Law — Appeals — Right of Appeal to Court of Appeal from High Court Decision on Appeal from Tax Appeals Tribunal
Section 27 of the Tax Appeals Tribunal Act confers a right of appeal from the Tribunal to the High Court on questions of law only and does not confer any further right of appeal to the Court of Appeal from such a decision of the High Court.
Tax Law — Income Tax Act s.101 — Appeal with Leave Limited to Direct High Court Appeals under s.100(1)(a)
Section 101 of the Income Tax Act permitting an appeal to the Court of Appeal with leave applies only where a taxpayer has elected to appeal a Commissioner's decision directly to the High Court under section 100(1)(a), and not where the taxpayer instead sought review before the Tax Appeals Tribunal.
Statutory Interpretation — Appellate Jurisdiction as a Creature of Statute
Appellate jurisdiction springs only from statute; there is no inherent appellate jurisdiction, and where Parliament has not conferred a right of appeal it cannot be implied.
Civil Procedure — Scheduling Conference — Direction Declining to Strike Out Skeleton Arguments Not an Appealable Order
A direction made at a scheduling conference confining parties to points of law and declining to strike out portions of skeleton arguments is not an appealable order, as there is no provision for striking out skeleton arguments and no order envisaged under the law giving rise to a right of appeal.
Civil Procedure — Third Appeals — Requirement of High Court Certificate of Great Public Importance
A third appeal to the Court of Appeal under section 73 of the Civil Procedure Act requires a certificate of the High Court that the appeal concerns a matter of law of great public or general importance; absent such certificate the appeal is incompetent.

Legislation cited (9)

Cases cited (1)

  • Attorney General v Shah (No. 4) [1971] EA 50

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.

Full judgment

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

Heritage Oil and Gas Limited v Uganda Revenue Authority (Civil Appeal No. 264 of 2018) [2020] UGCA 2080 (23 June 2020)
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.