Wakilii

Mbako v Reginam (Central Registry Criminal Application No. 6 of 1956)

East African Court of Appeal · [1956] EACA 571 · 1950 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for leave to appeal against conviction for murder from the High Court of Uganda
Decision
Application dismissed; conviction and sentence upheld

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.

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 arraignment does not form part of the trial. There is no objection to an accused being arraigned before one Judge and tried by another without further arraignment. However, the better practice is for the second Judge to arraign the accused afresh or at least remind him of the substance of the charge and his former plea. Application for leave to appeal refused.

Outcome

Application dismissed; conviction and sentence upheld

Facts

The applicant was convicted of murder by the High Court of Uganda. He applied for leave to appeal, which was refused by the High Court. The accused had been arraigned before Sheridan J. on 24 March 1956, who entered a plea of not guilty and adjourned the case. On 17 April 1956, the case was called before Bennett J., who proceeded with the trial without further arraigning the accused. The Court of Appeal considered whether this procedural irregularity rendered the trial a nullity.

Issues

  1. Whether arraignment before one Judge and trial before another Judge without further arraignment renders the trial a nullity.

Orders

  • Application for leave to appeal refused.

Rules and key headnotes

Criminal Law & Procedure — Arraignment — Distinction from Trial — Arraignment Not Part of Trial
Arraignment does not form part of the trial, and there can be no objection to an accused being arraigned before one Judge and tried by another Judge without the latter taking any further steps in regard to arraignment.
Criminal Law & Procedure — Arraignment — Better Practice When Trial Judge Differs from Arraigning Judge
Although not legally required, the better practice when an accused is tried by a different Judge from the one who arraigned him is for the second Judge to arraign the accused afresh or at least to remind him of the substance of the charge and of his former plea.
Criminal Law & Procedure — Trial Commencement — Trial Begins After Arraignment with Selection of Assessors
Under the Uganda Criminal Procedure Code, the trial with the aid of assessors commences only after arraignment when the Court proceeds to choose assessors, not with the reading of the charge or arraignment itself.

Legislation cited (4)

  • Uganda Criminal Procedure Code s.262
  • Uganda Criminal Procedure Code s.267
  • Uganda Criminal Procedure Code s.269
  • Indian Criminal Procedure Code s.272

Cases cited (1)

  • Queen-Empress v Bastiano bin Alexander Silva (1891) I.L.R. 14 Bombay 514

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Mbako v Reginam (Central Registry Criminal Application No. 6 of 1956) [1950] EACA 571 (1 January 1950)
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.