High court throws out Mabirizi land case against Kabaka
The High Court in Kampala has thrown out the case filed by lawyer male Mabirizi against Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi challenging compulsory registration of all tenants on the kingdom's mailo land.
Mabirizi last year sued the Kabaka challenging the decision to have all his subjects living on the kingdom land register their plots at a fee.
Early this month, the Court of Appeal overturned an order by High Court’s Justice Patricia Basaza to Kabaka to present all particulars in regards the kingdom’s accounts in Stanbic bank(Forest Mall Branch)and Bank of Africa (Main Branch) in the names of Buganda Land Board and the kingdom’s mailo land returned by the central government.
On Wednesday justice Henry Peter Adonyo noted that the case had been declared a nullity by the Court of Appeal which ruled that Mabiririzi wrongly filed the case when he purportedly represented tenants on the land without their consent.
Adonyo who was expected to rule on an application for stay of proceedings pending determination of an appeal before the Supreme Court instead threw out both the main case and the application.
“There being no legal basis upon which the stay of this proceeding can be based, it is the holding of this court that the application of stay of proceedings lacks merit and ought to fail accordingly as the main suit has already been declared a nullity by the court of appeal,”Adonyo ruled.
“This court is thus constrained to dismiss this allocation with costs to the correspondent. I do so order”
The judge noted that a panel of three judges of the court of appeal had declared the case in which Mabirizi challenges the compulsory registration of the tenants occupying the Buganda Kingdom Land hence the same was not tenable at a lower court adding that it was only prudent to throw it out.
“I add that there being no cause for this court to adjudicate upon, it's now left upon the applicant at the Supreme Court to seek orders either for reinstatement of the same cause or alternatively file another suit whichever will be applicable.”
In their judgment delivered on October 1, three justices of the Court of Appeal including Ezekiel Muhanguzi, Fredrick Egonda Ntende and Hellen Obura ruled that the orders to Kabaka were done erroneously by the High Court.
The judges ruled that since the matter does not qualify as a public law action, it cannot be maintained and therefore the application for disclosure and inspection cannot be necessary.
“The appellant (Kabaka) is not a government or public authority who wields governmental powers and in acting out of the actions complained of(by Mabirizi), there is no assertion that he is exercising governmental authority,” ruled the judges.
In his suit, Mabirizi had contended that he represents himself and the people from Buganda living on the official mailo land but in Monday’s ruling, the judges dismissed it saying there is no proof to show that he was acting on behalf of people from Buganda because he had not mentioned any of them.
“The action on behalf of other persons who are not named and whose consent has not been obtained is a representative action and is unlawful,” the judges contended.
Speaking after the court verdict on Wednesday, Mabirizi said the judge overstepped his powers.
“Dismissing the case is wrong because the Supreme Court is now determining the appeal on whether the discovery was proper and this discovery was on the case so you can't claim here and say the case is improper and you are dismissing it,”Mabirizi told journalists.
However, the lawyers representing the Kabaka led by Chris Bwanika insisted that even at the Supreme Court, Mabirizi’s case is not in accordance with the law.
“The court holds that Mabirizi’s case is unsustainable in law unless it’s his personal grievance and personal case but he insists on pursuing a case for people who are not in court, not mentioned and have not authorized him to act for them. He is simply trying to ride on claims of other people’s cases to make money and gain out of misguided litigation,”Bwanika said.
