Wakilii

Pentecostal Assemblies of God Ltd v Transsahara International (U) Ltd and Another (Civil Appeal 10 of 2010)

Supreme Court · [2012] UGSC 17 · 2012 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Second civil appeal from the Court of Appeal in objector proceedings that released attached property from execution
Decision
Appeal dismissed; the release of the park yard from attachment was upheld and the appellant ordered to pay UNAFRI's costs throughout

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. It held that UNAFRI had capacity to sue and be sued: its constitutive inter-governmental Statute and the hosting agreement conferred body-corporate status, and the Statute was not a treaty relating to armistice, neutrality or peace (nor one requiring a constitutional amendment), so it needed no parliamentary ratification under article 76 of the 1967 Constitution, article 123 of the 1995 Constitution or section 2 of the Ratification of Treaties Act. On execution, although the judgment debtor was in possession when the warrant issued, the warrant was never properly executed — no 14-day notice of sale was given and no attempt was made to renew it — so the objector's release of the park yard was rightly upheld.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed; the release of the park yard from attachment was upheld and the appellant ordered to pay UNAFRI's costs throughout

Facts

UNAFRI leased a parking yard to Transsahara International (U) Ltd for five years from October 2003. In 2004 the appellant paid Transsahara UGX 40,000,000 for a vehicle that was never delivered, sued in High Court Civil Suit No. 711 of 2004, and obtained a consent judgment for UGX 44,000,000 payable by installments with 11% interest on default. Transsahara defaulted, and the appellant obtained a warrant to attach and sell Transsahara's unregistered leasehold interest in the yard. Before the warrant issued, UNAFRI had written to Transsahara threatening to terminate the lease for rent arrears. UNAFRI then filed an objector application to release the yard, contending the lease had been terminated and the property was not Transsahara's. The High Court released the yard and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision, prompting this second appeal.

Issues

  1. Whether UNAFRI, an inter-governmental organisation whose constitutive Statute was never ratified by Parliament, had legal capacity to sue and be sued in Uganda.
  2. Whether the judgment debtor's unregistered lease interest in the park yard was successfully attached, given the failure to give the required notice of sale and to renew the warrant of attachment.
  3. Whether the Court of Appeal failed to properly re-evaluate the evidence on record and thereby reached a wrong decision.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Costs of the appeal awarded to UNAFRI (the second respondent/objector) in the Supreme Court and in the two courts below.

Rules and key headnotes

Constitutional Law — Treaties — Ratification — Requirement of parliamentary ratification
Under article 76 of the 1967 Constitution and article 123 of the 1995 Constitution read with section 2 of the Ratification of Treaties Act, only a treaty relating to armistice, neutrality or peace, or one the Attorney General certifies would require a constitutional amendment, must be ratified by Parliament; other treaties and agreements need not be laid before Parliament.
Constitutional Law — International Organisations — Capacity to sue — Constitutive statute
An inter-governmental organisation derives its legal capacity to sue and be sued from its constitutive statute and hosting agreement; where the host government has signed those instruments conferring body-corporate status, the organisation has capacity to litigate regardless of whether the statute was ratified.
Civil Procedure — Execution — Attachment and sale — Valid execution of warrant
A warrant of attachment is not successfully executed merely because the judgment debtor was in possession when it issued; the judgment creditor must give the required 14 days' notice of the time, place and conditions of sale and, where it lapses, renew the warrant, failing which there is no effective attachment.
Civil Procedure — Objector proceedings — Burden of proof
In objector proceedings the party asserting that an attached property belongs to the judgment debtor bears the burden of proving it; bare assertion unsupported by evidence cannot defeat the objector's claim to release the property.

Legislation cited (7)

Cases cited (4)

  • Joseph Mulenga v FIBA (U) (Miscellaneous Application No. 308 of 1996)
  • Charles Kassaja v Registrar of Titles (High Court Miscellaneous Application No. 51 of 1993)
  • Kifamunte Henry v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 10 of 1997)
  • Pandya v R (1957) E.A. 336

Full judgment

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

Pentecostal Assemblies of God Ltd v Transsahara International (U) Ltd and Another (Civil Appeal 10 of 2010) [2012] UGSC 17 (21 November 2012)
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.