Wakilii

Nakivubo Road Old Kampala (Kisekka) Market Vendors Limited and 3 Others v Kisembo and 4 Others [2024] UGSC 2

Supreme Court · 2024 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application to a single Justice of the Supreme Court for an interim stay of execution pending disposal of a substantive application for temporary stay
Decision
Application for interim stay of execution dismissed with costs

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

A single Justice held that, under rule 41(2) read with rules 2(2) and 6(2)(b), the Supreme Court had discretion to entertain an application under rule 6(2)(b) to safeguard the right of appeal even though no prior application had been made to the Court of Appeal. On the merits, although the applicants had a competent notice of appeal and a pending substantive application for temporary stay, they failed to prove the paramount third requirement of an imminent threat of execution: the property and KCCA allegations were foreign to the appeal, and the Court of Appeal's dismissal of the judicial review left nothing executable. The application was dismissed with costs.

Outcome

Application for interim stay of execution dismissed with costs

Facts

The 1st applicant is a company limited by guarantee with about 2,000 members; the 1st and 2nd respondents were among those elected to its Board of Directors. In February 2015, amid a dispute over the demolition of Kisekka market, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th applicants convened a meeting, passed a vote of no confidence in the Board, appointed a new Board including themselves, and notified the Registrar of Companies. On complaint by the 1st respondent, the Registrar of Companies, after investigation, ruled the meeting null and void as convened by only two members contrary to section 139 of the Companies Act, 2012, and the resolutions illegal. The applicants brought judicial review (High Court Misc. Cause No. 109 of 2015), which the High Court allowed. On appeal, the Court of Appeal (Consolidated Civil Appeals Nos. 0266 and 0297 of 2017, judgment dated 13 March 2023) set aside the High Court orders and dismissed the judicial review application. The applicants filed a notice of appeal and a substantive application for temporary stay (Supreme Court Civil Application No. 12 of 2023), then this application for interim stay pending its determination.

Issues

  1. Whether the application for interim stay could be entertained by the Supreme Court notwithstanding that no such application had first been made to the Court of Appeal.
  2. Whether there was a competent notice of appeal.
  3. Whether there was a pending substantive application.
  4. Whether there was an imminent threat of execution warranting the grant of an interim stay of execution.

Orders

  • Application dismissed with costs.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Stay of Execution — Interim Stay — Prerequisites
For an interim order of stay of execution to issue, the court focuses on whether there is a competent notice of appeal, a pending substantive application, and an imminent threat of execution before the hearing of that substantive application.
Civil Procedure — Stay of Execution — Jurisdiction — Direct Application to the Supreme Court
Rule 41(2) of the Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions, read together with rules 2(2) and 6(2)(b), confers on the Supreme Court a discretion to entertain an application under rule 6(2)(b) to safeguard the right of appeal notwithstanding that no application was first made to the Court of Appeal as required by rule 41(1).
Civil Procedure — Stay of Execution — Imminent Threat — Matters Foreign to the Appeal
A court will not grant an interim stay of execution in respect of property, matters, or persons that are not the subject of the pending appeal and are foreign to the application before it.
Civil Procedure — Stay of Execution — Absence of Executable Orders
Where the impugned decision merely dismisses an application and contains no orders capable of being executed, there is nothing to stay and an interim stay of execution will not issue.

Legislation cited (7)

  • Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions SI 13-11 Rule 2(2)
  • Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions SI 13-11 Rule 6(2)(b)
  • Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions SI 13-11 Rule 41(1)
  • Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions SI 13-11 Rule 41(2)
  • Judicature (Supreme Court Rules) Directions SI 13-11 Rule 43(1)
  • Companies Act 2012 s.3
  • Companies Act 2012 s.139

Cases cited (2)

  • Hwang Sung Industries Ltd v Tajdin Hussein and Others (Supreme Court Civil Application No. 19 of 2008)
  • Sgt. Oumo and Another v Wanyoto and Another (Supreme Court Civil Application No. 17 of 2022)

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Nakivubo Road Old Kampala (Kisekka) Market Vendors Limited and 3 Others v Kisembo and 4 Others [2024] UGSC 2 (17 January 2024)
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.