Ndaula Arafat and Another v Kasibante James Zawula (Miscellaneous Application No. 137 of 2025)

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.

Holding

The court dismissed an application for stay of execution where the applicants sought to stay execution of an exparte judgment without having filed any application to set aside that judgment. The court held that it cannot stay execution in eternity and that any stay must be pending disposal of some matter before the court. The application was dismissed as an abuse of court process with costs to the respondent.

Outcome

Application for stay of execution dismissed as abuse of court process

Facts

The applicants filed an application for stay of execution arising from Execution Miscellaneous Application No. 227 of 2024, which itself arose from Civil Suit No. 792 of 2019. The applicants claimed they were not served with summons to file defence in the underlying civil suit and were only served with notice to show cause why execution should not issue. They stated their intention to apply for review and setting aside of the exparte judgment entered against them. However, at the time of the application, no such application to set aside the exparte judgment had been filed.

Issues

1. Whether the court can grant a stay of execution where no application to set aside the exparte judgment has been filed.
2. Whether the application for stay of execution without a pending matter constitutes an abuse of court process.

Orders

• Application dismissed.
• Costs awarded to the respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

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