Wakilii

Jacqueline Rugasira v Vincent Rubarema (Miscellaneous Application No. 310 of 2023)

High Court · [2025] UGHCCD 220 · 2025 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal against a ruling in Miscellaneous Application No. 464 of 2020
Decision
Application for leave to appeal dismissed as incompetent due to late filing without sufficient cause

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.

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

Held that an application for leave to appeal filed five days after the fourteen-day statutory deadline without an accompanying application for extension of time is incompetent. The applicant failed to demonstrate sufficient cause for the delay or take steps to follow up on the ruling. Without just cause for enlarging time, the court is disinclined to sanction late filing. Application dismissed with costs to the respondent.

Outcome

Application for leave to appeal dismissed as incompetent due to late filing without sufficient cause

Facts

The applicant sought leave to appeal against a ruling in Miscellaneous Application No. 464 of 2020, which had ordered her to deposit UGX 60,000,000 within 45 days as a precondition to be heard in the main suit (Civil Suit No. 411 of 2017). The ruling was delivered on 26 May 2023. The applicant filed the present application on 15 June 2023, five days after the fourteen-day statutory deadline prescribed by Rule 40(2)(a) of the Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions. The applicant did not file an application for extension of time. The respondent raised a preliminary objection that the application was filed out of time. The applicant claimed she did not know about the ruling until she received a letter from the respondent's lawyers on 7 June 2023.

Issues

  1. Whether the application for leave to appeal was filed within the time prescribed by law.
  2. Whether the applicant demonstrated sufficient cause for the late filing of the application.
  3. Whether the application was competent before the court.

Orders

  • Application dismissed.
  • Costs awarded to the respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Leave to Appeal — Time Limits — Late Filing Without Extension Application
An application for leave to appeal filed outside the statutory fourteen-day period without an accompanying application for extension of time is incompetent and liable to be dismissed.
Civil Procedure — Extension of Time — Burden of Proof — Sufficient Cause
An applicant seeking to file an application out of time bears the burden of demonstrating sufficient cause for the delay. Failure to follow up on a ruling or to take steps to obtain it does not constitute sufficient cause.
Civil Procedure — Preliminary Objections — Raising in Submissions — Fair Hearing
Where a preliminary objection is raised in written submissions but not in the affidavit in reply, and the applicant is given an opportunity to respond in rejoinder submissions, no prejudice is caused and the court may determine the objection.

Legislation cited (6)

Cases cited (3)

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.

Jacqueline Rugasira v Vincent Rubarema (Miscellaneous Application No. 310 of 2023) [2025] UGHCCD 220 (27 November 2025)
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.