Hamis Kiggundu goes to Constitutional Court to challenge Supreme Court in another attempt to save empire

Hamis Kiggundu has petitioned the Constitutional Court challenging the ruling delivered last month by the Supreme Court in the against Diamond Trust Bank. Kiggundu says the judgement was defective and unconstitutional by law.

The Supreme Court, which is Uganda’s highest Court on June 13th 2023 ordered that Civil Suit No. 43 of 2020 be remitted to the High Court for retrial before another judge and among others upheld the legality and enforceability of syndicated lending contracts.

Under Constitutional Petition No. 18 of 2023, dated 07th of July 2023 Kiggundu, and his two companies, Ham Enterprises Ltd and Kiggs International (U) Ltd, now wants the Constitutional Court to compel the Supreme Court to retry Supreme Court Civil Appeal (SCCA) No. 13/2021 as well as two other related applications.

Through his lawyer Fred Muwema of Muwema and Co. Advocates, Kiggundu says the Supreme Court judgement was injudicious and “in complete violation of the Uganda code of judicial conduct and the Petitioners’ inviolable rights to be heard”. This, he says, caused him to suffer “an infringement of his constitutional right to a fair hearing”.

Kiggundu further questions how the judgment was dated and signed by the chief justice on June 6, 2023, but later signed by other panel justices on June 13, 2023, and delivered on the same date despite the chief justice stating that other Coram members were in full agreement with it 7 days before their actual signing; referred the case to the high court for retrial under a new Judge after not hearing 2 pending applications and disallowing the substantial issue of illegality.

He, therefore, wants the Constitutional Court to compel the Supreme Court to “expunge the proceedings and judgment in CivilAppeal No. 13/2021 from the public records of Uganda” as well as retry the entire Supreme Court Civil Appeal (SCCA) No. 13/2021.

Background to the case

Kiggundu through his companies obtained a loan from DTB-U and DTB-K which he failed to pay back in full. As a result, DTB commenced a recovery process in early 2020. By this time, the businessman owed DTB-U USD 4,014,444 and DTB-K USD 6,974,600.

However, Kiggundu sued Diamond Trust Bank for unlawfully, deceptively, extortionately and excessively withdrawing over Shs120 billion from his accounts over a spread banking period of close to 10 years seeking recovery of the same from the Court.

High Court ruled in favour of Kiggundu and ordered the bank to refund the money at an 8% interest rate. The bank was aggrieved and appealed at the court of appeal. The appellant court ordered a retrial of the case back at the high court after abolishing the substantial dispute of illegality.

Kiggundu appealed at Supreme Court and additionally filed Misc. applications; 1,51/2022 seeking judgement on the bank’s admission of committing illegalities on court records and 2, 15/2023 seeking introduction of new evidence against the bank from the Director Supervision, Central Bank of Kenya which applications were never heard as provided for under articles 28 and 44(C) of the Ugandan Constitution.