Wakilii

Rex v Oba (Criminal Appeal No. 90 of 1941)

East African Court of Appeal · [1941] EACA 98 · 1941 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Criminal appeal from conviction for murder by the High Court of Tanganyika
Decision
Conviction for murder upheld; appellant remains convicted.

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

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against a murder conviction. Even assuming the deceased had spoken insulting words to the appellant immediately before he shot her, the insult was not of such a nature as to be likely to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control. The real motive for the killing was the appellant's malice towards the deceased for refusing to return to him after she had left him for another man who had paid no expenses for her.

Outcome

Conviction for murder upheld; appellant remains convicted.

Facts

The appellant, a game scout, had been living with the deceased woman though they were not married. While he was away at Arusha, she left him for another man who had paid no expenses for her. The appellant was particularly aggrieved by this fact. When he encountered the deceased by chance while carrying his rifle on his way to work, he became intensely annoyed. According to his evidence at trial, she spoke insulting words to him. He shot her three times, killing her. In his extra-judicial confession and statutory statement, the appellant stated that his real reason for killing her was his fury at her refusal to leave the other man and return home at his expense, and particularly that she was living with a man who had paid nothing for her. Neither of these earlier statements mentioned any insulting words spoken by the deceased.

Issues

  1. Whether insulting words spoken by the deceased immediately before she was shot constituted provocation sufficient to reduce murder to manslaughter.
  2. Whether the alleged insult was of such a nature as to be likely to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.

Rules and key headnotes

Murder — Provocation — Insulting Words — Test for Ordinary Person
For insulting words to constitute provocation sufficient to reduce murder to manslaughter, the insult must be of such a nature as to be likely to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control and to induce him to assault the person by whom the insult is offered, judging the accused not by his individual characteristics but as an ordinary person of the class to which he belonged.
Murder — Provocation — Mere Words — Sufficiency
Mere words, however grave, will not ordinarily amount to provocation sufficient to reduce murder to manslaughter, but there may be cases where, by reason of the circumstances, words if sufficiently insulting will constitute such provocation.
Confessions and Statements — Weight — Omissions
Where an accused's extra-judicial confession and statutory statement disclose the real motive for killing and make no reference to an alleged insult, but the accused later alleges such insult in evidence at trial, the court may consider whether the allegation is an afterthought and whether the real motive was that disclosed in the earlier statements.

Legislation cited (1)

  • Penal Code s.192

Cases cited (3)

  • Rex v Maziku (Criminal Appeal No. 99 of 1941)
  • R v Abderrehemani bin Brahim (2 E.A.C.A. 81)
  • R v Samsoni Kafausa (6 E.A.C.A. 154)

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Rex v Oba (Criminal Appeal No. 90 of 1941) [1941] EACA 98 (1 January 1941)
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.