Wakilii

Turyagumanawe & 6 Ors v Attorney General & Anor (MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATION No. 559 OF 2016)

High Court · [2017] UGHCCD 68 · 2017 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for review of consent judgment arising from Civil Suit No. 1022 of 2001
Decision
Application for review dismissed; consent judgment stands

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

Held that the application for review of a consent judgment failed on multiple grounds. The 3549 beneficiaries who received compensation under the consent judgment were not made parties to the application, rendering any orders unenforceable. The 2nd respondent was not party to the consent judgment and could not be bound by an application arising from it, applying the doctrine of privity of contract. The applicants failed to obtain a representative order under Order 1 Rule 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules, rendering the application incompetent. On the merits, the applicants failed to establish grounds for setting aside the consent judgment under the Brooke Bond Liebig test. Application dismissed with costs.

Outcome

Application for review dismissed; consent judgment stands

Facts

In Civil Suit No. 1022 of 2001, 4822 plaintiffs sued the Attorney General and Uganda Wild Life Authority for compensation arising from evictions from Kibaale Game Reserve. In 2010, a consent judgment was entered between the Attorney General and 3549 of the plaintiffs, who were subsequently paid compensation. The consent was signed by one representative, Amos Bakeine, and did not involve the 2nd respondent. The applicants, who were among 1273 persons excluded from the compensation, brought this application in 2016 seeking to set aside the consent judgment on grounds including lack of representation, misrepresentation, and exclusion from the verification exercise. The respondents opposed the application on grounds including non-joinder of the 3549 beneficiaries, lack of a representative order, and absence of grounds to vitiate the consent judgment.

Issues

  1. Whether the consent judgment in Civil Suit No. 1022 of 2001 should be set aside or reviewed.
  2. Whether the application is competent given that beneficiaries of the consent judgment were not joined as parties.
  3. Whether the application is enforceable where the consent judgment has already been executed.
  4. Whether the 2nd respondent can be sued when it was not party to the consent judgment.
  5. Whether the applicants required a representative order under Order 1 Rule 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules.
  6. Whether the consent judgment was vitiated by fraud, collusion, misrepresentation, or common mistake.

Orders

  • Application dismissed.
  • Costs awarded to the respondents.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Review of Consent Judgments — Non-Joinder of Necessary Parties
Where an application seeks to set aside a consent judgment already executed and beneficiaries who received payment under that judgment are not made parties to the application, any orders made would be unenforceable against them and the application must be dismissed as an academic exercise.
Contract Law — Privity of Contract — Application to Consent Judgments
A consent judgment is based on agreement between the parties and the doctrine of privity of contract applies. A party who was not privy to the consent agreement cannot sue on it or be held liable under it, even where that party was a co-defendant in the underlying suit.
Civil Procedure — Representative Orders — Mandatory Requirement Under Order 1 Rule 8
The requirement to obtain a representative order under Order 1 Rule 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules is mandatory. A power of attorney cannot operate to replace this requirement. Failure to obtain a representative order renders the suit incompetent and the suit should be struck out.
Civil Procedure — Review of Consent Judgments — Grounds for Setting Aside
A consent judgment may only be set aside for fraud, collusion, any reason which would enable the Court to set aside an agreement, lack of sufficient material facts, or if entered in misapprehension or ignorance of material facts essential to the agreement.
Contract Law — Common Mistake — Mistake as to Essential Fact
A common mistake can void a contract only if the mistake of the subject matter is sufficiently fundamental to render its identity different from what was contracted, making performance impossible. Under section 17 of the Contracts Act 2010, both parties must be under a mistake as to a matter of fact which is essential to the agreement. Exclusion of certain claimants from a consent judgment does not constitute a common mistake essential to the agreement.

Legislation cited (7)

Cases cited (5)

  • Brooke Bond Liebig (T) Ltd v Mallya [1975] 1 EA 266
  • Bell v Lever Brothers Ltd [1932] AC 161
  • Uganda Wildlife Authority v Amos Bakeine & Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 140 of 2012)
  • Henry B. Kamoga & Others v Bank of Uganda (HCCS No. 62 of 2009)
  • Kiiza Daniel & Others v Uganda Land Commission & Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 1237 of 2013)

Full judgment

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

Turyagumanawe & 6 Ors v Attorney General & Anor (MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATION No. 559 OF 2016) [2017] UGHCCD 68 (3 April 2017)
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.