Pio Mwesigwa v Tanansi Bishanga (Miscellaneous Application 219 of 2024)

Observed later treatment

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

Held that an application for review is incompetent where a Notice of Appeal has been filed and remains pending, even if the appeal has been abandoned by counsel. Section 82 of the Civil Procedure Act and Order 46 Rule 1 of the Civil Procedure Rules bar review where an appeal has been preferred. The applicant must formally withdraw the appeal before applying for review. Further, the alleged new evidence would not have altered the judgment as it did not resolve the discrepancies in the vendor's names that led to dismissal of the appeal.

Outcome

Application for review dismissed as incompetent

Facts

The respondent sued the applicant for trespass and obtained judgment at the Magistrate's Court. The applicant appealed to the High Court, which dismissed the appeal on grounds of discrepancies in the vendor's names. On 12 September 2023, the applicant filed a Notice of Appeal to the Court of Appeal and requested certified proceedings. On 14 June 2024, nine months later, the applicant filed this application for review, seeking to introduce new evidence from the vendor's son regarding the vendor's identity and a grave inscription showing the name John Mugisha Rutanana. The applicant claimed his former lawyer abandoned the appeal. The respondent objected that the application was incompetent because the Notice of Appeal remained pending and had never been formally withdrawn.

Issues

1. Whether the application for review is competent before the High Court where a Notice of Appeal has been filed but not withdrawn.
2. Whether the applicant has discovered new and important evidence which could not have been produced at trial and which would alter the judgment.

Orders

• Application dismissed with costs to the respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (7)

• Civil Procedure Act s.82
• Civil Procedure Act s.98
• Judicature Act s.33
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 46 Rule 1
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 52 Rules 1, 2 and 3
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 21 Rule 1(3)
• Judicature (Court of Appeal Rules) Directions Rule 76(1)

Cases cited (7)

• FX Mubuku v Uganda Electricity Board (High Court Miscellaneous Application No. 2005)
• Attorney General v AKPM Lutaaya (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 12 of 2007)
• Brown v Dean [1910] AC 373
• Kisya Investments Ltd v Attorney General (Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. 31 of 1995)
• Muhammed Katamba and Another v Hajji Kiramba Kasalita and Others (High Court Miscellaneous Application No. 1165 of 2016)
• DAJ Communications Ltd v David Kihika (Miscellaneous Application No. 18 of 2023)
• Re Nakivubo Chemists (U) Ltd [1979] HCB 12

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.

• Luyombya Erenea and Others v Lutamaguzi Steven and Others (Miscellaneous Application 26 of 2026)

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