Wakilii

Sebukyu & Another v Zabasajja (Civil Appeal 45 of 2020)

High Court · [2023] UGHC 401 · 2023 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Appeal from Chief Magistrate's Court decision in trespass suit, dismissed on preliminary objection for defective memorandum of appeal
Decision
Appeal dismissed on preliminary objection; trial court decision stands

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Sequitur — Uganda’s citator · Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

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.

No adverse treatment recorded Cited 1 time with no adverse treatment recorded; not yet tested on the merits. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.

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 High Court dismissed an appeal on preliminary objection where the sole ground alleged failure to evaluate evidence without specifying any particular error of law or fact. Such a ground constitutes a fishing expedition and offends Order 43 rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Rules, which requires grounds of appeal to be set out concisely under distinct heads without narrative. The court followed Attorney General v Florence Baliraine.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed on preliminary objection; trial court decision stands

Facts

The Respondent sued the Appellants for trespass on land at Buyanja village forming part of the estate of the late Leo Biriko. The trial court found the Appellants were trespassers and gave them six months to harvest crops before eviction and granted a permanent injunction. The Appellants appealed raising only one ground: that the trial magistrate erred in failing to properly evaluate the evidence of DW2 thereby reaching a wrong conclusion. The Respondent raised a preliminary objection that this ground offended Order 43 rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

Issues

  1. Whether the sole ground of appeal stating 'failure to properly evaluate evidence of DW2' offends Order 43 rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

Orders

  • HCCA No. 45 of 2020 is dismissed.
  • The Appellants shall pay the Respondent's costs of defending this appeal.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Appeals — Memorandum of Appeal — Form and Content of Grounds
A ground of appeal that merely states 'failure to properly evaluate evidence' without specifying the particular error of law or fact complained of offends Order 43 rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Rules and amounts to a fishing expedition undertaken with hope to discover a reason to complain.
Civil Procedure — Appeals — Preliminary Objections — Defective Grounds of Appeal
A memorandum of appeal must set forth concisely and under distinct heads, without argument or narrative, the grounds of objection to the decree appealed against. Failure to comply renders the appeal liable to dismissal on preliminary objection.

Legislation cited (1)

Cases cited (2)

  • Attorney General v Florence Baliraine (Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. 79 of 2003)
  • Magezi Bruno v Kiberu Richard (High Court Civil Appeal No. 8 of 2020)

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.

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

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

Sebukyu & Another v Zabasajja (Civil Appeal 45 of 2020) [2023] UGHC 401 (3 July 2023)
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.