Kato Bumali v Uganda [2020] UGSC 14

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

Hearing the matter as a single Justice, Buteera JSC held that under Rule 50(1),(2)(a) of the Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules an application for a certificate of importance must be heard by the Court sitting as a panel of not fewer than three Justices. Because the single application combined a request for extension of time (within a single Justice's competence) with a request for the grant of a certificate of importance (reserved to the full Court), the application could not be severed; the single Justice lacked jurisdiction to entertain the whole of it. The application was accordingly adjourned for determination on its merits by the full Court, with the second preliminary objection left to be resolved together.

Outcome

Single Justice held he lacked jurisdiction over the combined application and adjourned it for determination on its merits by the full Court (a panel of not fewer than three Justices).

Facts

The applicant was convicted by the Chief Magistrates Court at Buganda Road (Criminal Case No. 5 of 2012) of obtaining money by false pretences and, on 24 April 2014, sentenced to three years' imprisonment and ordered to pay USD 20,000 compensation to the complainant. His appeals to the High Court and then the Court of Appeal were both unsuccessful, the Court of Appeal judgment being delivered on 8 April 2016. He filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court and, in January 2017, sought a certificate of importance from the Court of Appeal (Miscellaneous Application No. 8 of 2017), which was refused on 21 December 2017. The applicant, then unrepresented and recently released from prison, contended he drafted and filed Supreme Court Criminal Application No. 2 of 2018 before withdrawing it in favour of the present application, filed on 19 December 2018. The present application sought both an extension of time to apply for a certificate of importance and the grant of that certificate.

Issues

1. Whether a single Justice of the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear an application that seeks both an extension of time and the grant of a certificate of importance.
2. Whether the application was improperly before the Court for failure to first exhaust the certificate-of-importance procedure in the Court of Appeal under Rule 38.

Orders

• The single Justice lacks jurisdiction to entertain the whole application.
• The application is adjourned for determination on its merits by the Court.
• The Registrar of the Court is directed to fix the application for hearing by the Court at the next convenient session.
• The costs of the adjournment shall abide the outcome of the application.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (8)

• Judicature Act s.5(5)
• Judicature Act s.6(2)
• Judicature Act s.6(5)
• Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules r.2(2)
• Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules r.5
• Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules r.38(1)
• Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules r.43
• Judicature (Supreme Court) Rules r.50(1),(2)(a)

Cases cited (4)

• Tushabe Chris v Cooperative Bank Ltd (In Receivership) (Civil Application No. 8 of 2018)
• Shanti v Hindocha and others [1973] EA 207
• Molly Kyalukinda Turinawe & 4 others v Turinawe Ephriam & another (Civil Application No. 27 of 2010)
• Namuddu Christine v Uganda (Supreme Court Application No. 3 of 1999)

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.

• Tinkamanyire v Kihika & Another (Civil Application 34 of 2020)

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