Wakilii

Mabirizi Kiwanuka v Attorney General (Civil Application No. 549 of 2022)

Court of Appeal · [2022] UGCA 226 · 2022 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for temporary release from prison pending appeal against High Court committal for contempt of court
Decision
Application dismissed; contemnor to continue serving 18-month sentence; eight related applications struck out for abuse of court process

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

The Court held that the applicant was committed for criminal contempt (scandalising the court), which is a crime akin to any other criminal conviction. Criminal contempt cannot be purged merely by serving a sentence or paying a fine; only a genuine apology accepted by the committing court or a successful appeal offers relief. There is no remedy of 'temporary release from prison' in Ugandan law for a committed criminal contemnor; the only avenue is bail pending appeal under section 40(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The application was dismissed. The Court also found that filing twelve substantially identical applications amounted to an abuse of court process and struck out eight of them.

Outcome

Application dismissed; contemnor to continue serving 18-month sentence; eight related applications struck out for abuse of court process

Facts

The applicant, a lawyer, was found in contempt of court by the High Court on 27 January 2022 (fined UGX 300 million) and again on 15 February 2022, when he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. The second contempt arose from a series of posts on his Twitter accounts and letters attacking and demeaning the trial judge, Sekana, J, and the judiciary, in defiance of an earlier strong warning to desist from attacking judicial officers. He was arrested on 21 February 2022 and imprisoned. He filed a Notice of Appeal against the 15 February decision but had not lodged the substantive appeal at the time of hearing, claiming he awaited the record of proceedings. He brought this application, and eleven others, seeking temporary release from prison pending determination of his intended appeal, contending he was denied a fair hearing and unlawfully detained.

Issues

  1. Whether the contempts for which the applicant was committed to prison were criminal or civil contempts.
  2. Whether the contemnor is under an obligation to purge himself of the contempts, and if so, how.
  3. Whether the remedy of temporary release from prison following committal for contempt of court is available to a criminal contemnor.
  4. Whether the applicant's filing of numerous applications seeking the same relief amounted to an abuse of court process.

Orders

  • The application for temporary release is dismissed.
  • The contemnor will continue to serve his sentence of 18 months in prison until further orders of a court with competent jurisdiction.
  • The contemnor may apply for bail pending appeal after filing his appeal.
  • The contemnor is free to exercise his right to seek the pardon of the court that committed him to prison in respect of the contempts.
  • Civil Applications 433 of 2022, 64 of 2022, 434 of 2022, 436 of 2022, 546 of 2022, 547 of 2022 (former CA No. 66 of 2022), 548 of 2022 and 550 of 2022 are struck out with no orders as to costs.
  • Costs for this application shall be borne by the applicant.

Rules and key headnotes

Contempt of Court — Scandalising the Court — Classification as Criminal Contempt
Conduct that publishes comments demeaning judicial officers and casting unwarranted, defamatory aspersions on the character or ability of judges amounts to scandalising the court, which is criminal contempt because it involves a public injury to the administration of justice, notwithstanding that it may also breach a prior court order.
Contempt of Court — Purging — Criminal Contempt Cannot Be Purged by Serving Sentence or Paying Fine
A person convicted of criminal contempt cannot purge the contempt merely by serving the sentence or paying the fine imposed; while criminal contempt is pardonable, purgation requires a genuine and sincere apology accepted by the committing court, failing which the only remedy is an appeal against conviction or sentence.
Contempt of Court — Right of Audience — Criminal Contemnor Not Barred From Being Heard
The rule that a contemnor who has not purged contempt has no audience before the court applies to civil contempt; a committed criminal contemnor who challenges the very order that put him in contempt retains an as-of-right access to appeal and must be heard, consistent with Article 28 of the Constitution.
Contempt of Court — Remedy of Release Pending Appeal — Bail the Only Avenue
There is no remedy of 'temporary release from prison' available to a person committed for criminal contempt under Ugandan law; the only means by which such a contemnor may be released pending an appeal is an application for bail pending appeal under section 40(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Abuse of Court Process — Multiplicity of Identical Applications
Filing numerous substantially identical applications against the same party seeking the same relief, where one or two would have sufficed, constitutes an abuse of the court process and such applications may be struck out under section 98 of the Civil Procedure Act and rule 2(2)(b) of the Court of Appeal Rules to prevent abuse and preserve judicial resources.
Contempt of Court — Sentencing — No Statutory Maximum for Criminal Contempt
By virtue of Article 28(12) of the Constitution and the inherent jurisdiction of the court preserved by section 107(3) of the Penal Code Act, what amounts to contempt of court and the punishment for it are determined by the particular court; there is no prescribed maximum sentence for criminal contempt in Uganda.

Legislation cited (29)

Cases cited (33)

  • Ssekikubo v Attorney General (Constitutional Application No. 5 of 2012)
  • Gashumba v Nkundiye (Civil Application No. 24 of 2015)
  • Turyatemba v Uganda Land Commission (Constitutional Petition No. 16 of 2006)
  • Bakaluba Mukasa v Nambooze Betty Bakireke (Election Petition No. 4 of 2009)
  • Stella Nyanzi v. Uganda
  • Tusingwire v Attorney General (Constitutional Application No. 6 of 2019)
  • Alcon International Ltd v New Vision Printing and Publishing Co Ltd (Civil Application No. 4 of 2010)
  • Mabirizi v Attorney General (Civil Application No. 40 of 2022)
  • Housing Finance Bank Ltd v Edward Musisi (Miscellaneous Application No. 188 of 2010)
  • China Henan International Corporation Group v Kyabahwa (Civil Application No. 30 of 2021)
  • Ssebaduka v Chairman of Electoral Commission (Presidential Election Petition No. 1 of 2020)
  • Dawaru v Angumale (Miscellaneous Civil Application No. 96 of 2016)
  • Cooper v. Wandsworth Board of Works [1863] 143 ER 414
  • American Cyanamid v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396
  • Poje v. Attorney General for British Columbia [1953] 1 S.C.R. 516 at 522
  • Home Office v Harman [1983] 1 AC 280 at 310
  • Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1992] 1 AC 191 at 217-218
  • Republic v Mensah-Bonsu & others; Ex parte Attorney General [1995-96] 1 GLR 377
  • Turner v Rogers 564 US 10-10 2011
  • Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S 194 [1968]
  • Pravin C. Shah v. K. A. Mohd Ali & Another, Appeal (Civil) 3050 of 2000
  • Atta v. Mohamadu [1980] GLR 862 (HC), pp. 865-866
  • X Ltd v Morgan-Grampian (Publishers) Ltd [1991] AC 1
  • The Messiniaki Tolmi [1981] 2 Lloyd's Rep 595 at 602
  • Hadkinson v Hadkinson [1952] P285
  • In re Republic of Costa Rica v Erlanger (1877) 46 LJCh 375, 383
  • The Matter of Ravindar Balli (Also known as Ravindar Singh) [2011] EWHC 1865 (Ch)
  • Manson v. Vooght & Others [1999] BPIR 376
  • Johnson v Gore Wood & Company [2001] All ER 481
  • Henderson v. Henderson (1843) 3 Hare 100 at 114
  • HM Attorney General v. Gadaljhu Ebert [2001] EWCA Civ 707
  • Attorney General v Covey; Attorney General v Matthews [2001] EWCA Civ 254
  • Tolstoy Miloslavsky v United Kingdom [1995] 20 EHRR 442

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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Mabirizi Kiwanuka v Attorney General (Civil Application No. 549 of 2022) [2022] UGCA 226 (19 August 2022)
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.