Sande v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 127 of 2009)

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

The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against an 18-year sentence for murder. The appellant argued the trial Judge failed to subtract his 2 years and 3 months on remand from the sentence as required by Article 23(8) of the Constitution. The Court held that Article 23(8) requires the court to take the remand period into account, but this does not mean an arithmetical subtraction. Following Kizito Senkula v Uganda, the Court found the trial Judge had expressly considered the remand period among his sentencing factors and therefore complied with the Constitution. The appeal had no merit and the sentence was upheld.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed; 18-year sentence for murder upheld

Facts

The appellant was convicted of murder on 1 June 2009 by the High Court at Nakawa after pleading guilty, and was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. He had spent 2 years and 3 months on remand before conviction. He appealed on two grounds, one concerning the severity of the sentence and the other its legality; the severity ground was abandoned. The remaining ground contended that the trial Judge erred in law by not subtracting the remand period from the sentence. The trial Judge had expressly listed the remand period of 2 years and 3 months among the factors he considered when passing sentence.

Issues

1. Whether the trial Judge erred in law by failing to subtract the period the appellant spent on remand from the sentence imposed.
2. Whether the trial Judge complied with Article 23(8) of the Constitution in taking into account the remand period before passing sentence.

Orders

• Appeal dismissed.
• Sentence imposed by the trial Court upheld.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (1)

• Constitution of Uganda 1995 Article 23(8)

Cases cited (2)

• Kizito Senkula v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 24 of 2001)
• Attorney General v Susan Kigula and 417 Others (Constitutional Appeal No. 3 of 2006)

Cases citing this judgment (2)

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.

• Wafula v Uganda [2019] UGSC 23
• Kaserebanyi v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No.040 of 2006)

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