Before being transferred from the Commercial Division of the High Court, Justice Stephen Mubiru was shocked to learn from one of the lawyers who pleaded with him to clarify on the judgement purportedly issued by him in their matter yet it was still ongoing.
A lawyer who is handling the matter told this reporter that the judge was shocked and tasked the lawyer to prove his allegation. He was surprised to see that the said judgement was already posted on the judiciary’s Uganda Legal Information Institute’s (ULII) website.
“I’m telling you the judge was shocked, he shook his head and assured us that the said judgement is fake noting that he will notify us when he is set to deliver his true judgement,” the lawyer said.
This website accessed the judiciary’s Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS) and established that the said matter in record is still pending judgement and we further established that Justice Anne Mugenyi Bitature of the Commercial Division of the High Court is set to mention the said case next week.
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The matter in contention is a 2022 case in which a British businessman hired two law firms to institute a commercial suit against a top commercial bank in the country accusing the bank of fraudulently stealing more than Shs800m from his bank account.
To defend this suit, the bank hired one of the prominent commercial law firms in the country which resides in Bugolobi, a Kampala suburb and as witnesses were still testifying, lawyers were shocked when their client missed a Court hearing even though they had agreed with them earlier that he will be present.
After the adjournment of the matter, they reached out to him and he told them that he had settled the matter with the bank and he was compensated all his money with interest.
He further told them that he was even traveling back to his home country.
When asked why he didn’t involve them in the mediation, he told them that after the bank realised that they had a bad case and that if a judgement was entered against it, they were going to place its image in bad light internationally since it is an international bank. They decided to meet him secretly and within one day his money was deposited to his bank account
“He told us that it was agreed in their deal that the bank will give us our costs. When we contacted the lawyers of the bank for our costs, they told us that they will only pay our costs after giving them a certified judgement and we are only waiting for Justice Mubiru’s judgement to see whether we can use it to get our costs,” a lawyer said
According to the fake judgement, the businessman’s money was stolen from his bank account by fraudsters who attacked the bank’s cyber system when he was still in South Sudan.
He was compensated the money he spent on food, drinks, car hire, accommodation for the period between 23rd March to 30th May 2022 because he refused to leave Uganda until he recovers his money.
He was also compensated with Shs20m he spent on hiring two law firms plus his US dollar 245,000 and US Dollar 22,500 which was stolen from his bank account with 6% interest from the date it was stolen to April 2023 when the forged judgement was delivered.
The development comes at a time when Justice Suzan Adongo of the Commercial Division of the High Court has just directed businessman Haruna Ssentongo brother to controversial businessman Hamis Kiggundu and Isaac Nsereko of Downtown bags limited proprietor to appear before the Court’s Assistant Registrar and agree on documents on their file after learning that forged documents were smuggled and placed on Court record
The Shs2bn case, according to Court record spent years missing from the Court registry only to resurface with forged orders against Ssentongo who protested and the judge established that a forgery was made on the court record.
Another city lawyer Nelson Walusimbi was also dragged to Uganda Law Council on allegations of forging Court Orders.
According to records before the Law Council, Walusimbi was defending two controversial city businessmen Sudhir Ruparelia and Ephraim Ntaganda against retired Makerere university law Don Dr Simon Peter Gukiina.
This is not the first-time fraud cases are being investigated at the Commercial Division of the High Court, in 2024, the Auditor General’s Office and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) investigated a court staff who connived with lawyers to register cases without paying government taxes by using one receipt to file several courts on the ECCMIS system.
Former Judiciary Permanent Secretary Kagole Kivumbi was also interdicted on allegations of mismanaging judiciary’s money especially that which was paid by accused persons to be released on Court bail
Judiciary top leaders including Chief Justice Owiny Dollo have been struggling with fighting corruption in the judiciary and they were very sure that with the introduction of ECCMIS system, corruption will be defeated because lawyers will not physically go face on face with judicial staff so that money exchanges hands to secure favours.
This website has exclusively learnt that State organs that were assigned to fight corruption have picked interest in ongoing corruption at the Commercial Court.
