Housing Finance Limited and Another v Edward Mutabazi (Civil Application No. 207 of 2025)

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.

Holding

The Court of Appeal granted a stay of execution pending the hearing of the applicants' appeal. Applying the established conditions, it found the memorandum of appeal raised genuine, plausible triable issues, that there was an imminent threat of execution (the respondent having filed an execution application in the Mengo Chief Magistrates Court with a hearing date), and that the applicants risked irreparable injury because the respondent was an individual with no known assets from whom the decretal sum could not be recovered if the appeal succeeded. The applicants were willing to furnish security for due performance. The court declined to express any view on the merits of the pending appeal.

Outcome

Stay of execution granted pending determination of Civil Appeal No. 960 of 2024

Facts

The applicants were dissatisfied with a High Court judgment in Civil Appeal No. 0057 of 2023, delivered on 4 July 2024, which upheld the trial magistrate's ruling and ordered the first applicant to pay costs. They filed Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. 960 of 2024 against that decision. In the meantime, the respondent filed a notice to show cause and an execution application in the Mengo Chief Magistrates Court seeking to recover UGX 14,715,000 (decretal sum and costs) against the first applicant, with a hearing scheduled for 26 May 2025, and a taxation application. The applicants' earlier application for stay of execution before the High Court had been dismissed on 2 May 2025. The first applicant is a bank with the means to pay any costs if the appeal failed, while the respondent was an individual with no known assets from whom sums could be recovered if the appeal succeeded. The applicants expressed willingness to provide security for due performance.

Issues

1. Whether the applicants satisfied the conditions for the grant of an order staying execution pending the determination of their appeal.

Orders

• Stay of execution granted pending the hearing and determination of Civil Appeal No. 960 of 2024.
• Costs shall be in the cause.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (5)

• Judicature Act s.33
• Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.2(2)
• Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.6(2)
• Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.42
• Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions S.I 13-10 r.43

Cases cited (9)

• Gashumba Manir Guha v Sam Nkudiye (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 24 of 2015)
• DFCU BANK LTD VS DR.ANN PERSIS LUSEREJE C.A Civil Application No.29 of
• H.G Gandesha and Another v G.J Lutaaya (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 14 of 1989)
• Lt. Col. John Kaye v Attorney General (Constitutional Application No. 25 of 2012)
• Binaisa Nakalema and 3 Others v Mucunguzi Myers (Miscellaneous Application No. 460 of 2023)
• Lawrence Musiitwa Kyazze v Eunice Busingye (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 78 of 1990)
• Hon Theodore Ssekikubo and Others v Attorney General and Others (Constitutional Application No. 03 of 2014)
• Swanya Ltd v Daima Bank Ltd (Nairobi Court of Appeal Civil Application No. 45 of 2001)
• Delphi Bank Ltd Caneland Ltd Nairobi Civil Applications No. 333 and 334 of 1999

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