Our attention has been drawn to statements in the media against Kampala Associated Advocates attributed to Frank Nigel Othembi, the director of the Law Development Centre, and Hamisi Lukyamuzi, the administration manager of the same institution.

We wish to clarify as follows.

In 2003, the Law Development Centre sued Daniel Wasswa Sserufusa, our client, claiming that it was the rightful owner of the land comprised in Kibuga Block 9 Plot 222.

Our client is the registered owner of that land. In the suit, LDC obtained an injunction halting our client’s developments on the land and thus kept him out of it for the last 13 years.

Our client defended the suit and also counterclaimed against LDC. He pleaded that he has never been compensated for his land. The Constitution requires a landowner to be compensated before his land is compulsorily acquired by government.

Sometime in 2013, ten years after it instituted the suit against our client, LDC took out a “third party notice” against the attorney general. A third party notice is taken out by a defendant to a suit who claims that a he or she (the defendant) is entitled to an indemnity from that third party in the event that they (the defendant) lose the case to the plaintiff.

It is to be noted that LDC was the defendant to our client’s counterclaim.

Third party proceedings are exclusively between the defendant and the third party. Accordingly, our client was not involved at all in the third party proceedings between the attorney general or in the third party notice that resulted from it.

The attorney general did not file a written statement of defense and a default judgment was entered against him. Plainly, this was a judgment for LDC against the attorney general.

Our client did not participate in those third party proceedings at all. On November 4, 2016, the Land division of the High court of Uganda gave judgment in favour of our client against LDC. He was awarded general and special damages as well as costs of the suit.

The principal judgment debt at the time of execution stood at Shs 1.079bn. It also attracted interest of eight per cent per annum from the date of LDC’s filing the suit in 2003 till payment in full.

The attorney general was not a party to the suit. He is not even cited as a party in the text of the judgment and the decree at all.  LDC did not appeal the decision.

Transfer of money from LDC’s accounts

It is that decree that was enforced against LDC through garnishee proceedings. Garnishee proceedings involve the attachment of debts and their eventual payment over to a judgment creditor.

It is a court process. Monies were transferred from LDC’s Stanbic bank account number 0140005170101 unto our clients’ account in the same bank in compliance with a valid court order (Garnishee Order Absolute).

This order was issued in the Executions and Bailiffs division of the High court on the February 9, 2017. The order was extracted and served to Stanbic bank on the same day at 12:53pm. As is expected of any law-abiding institution, Stanbic complied with the court order. The transfer to our clients’ account was thus lawful.

The money was eventually transferred by ourselves to the judgment creditor, our client. This was not only lawful but also our professional duty. What would have been an anomaly would have been for us to receive our client’s money and not transfer it to them.

Interim order restraining the transfer

At the time of the transfer, there was not and there is indeed no interim court order or any court order at all that stopped or restrained the transfer of the judgment debt from LDC’s accounts.

While the execution proceedings were ongoing in the Executions and Bailiffs’ division of the High court, LDC, through another application, sought for the Land division of the High court that had made the judgment to declare that it is the attorney general, the third party, who should have paid our client and not itself.

We opposed the application because we take the view that a defendant who summons a third party such as LDC did, must first pay the decree against it. It can then seek an indemnity/compensation from the third party that it summoned.

It must be emphasized that the interim order of February 3, 2017 from the Lands division did not stay the garnishee proceedings that were before the Executions and Bailiffs division.

We wish to clarify that:

That interim order was not concerned with and did not arise out of the execution/garnishment proceedings. In its text and context, it did not touch on the then ongoing garnishee proceedings.

While that interim order was issued in the Lands division, the execution/garnishee proceedings were conducted and concluded in the Executions and Bailiffs division of the High court;

Stanbic bank was not a party to the interim order application and, therefore, to the interim order that resulted from it in the Lands division. It did not participate in those proceedings at all. The order did not cite or require Stanbic bank to do or refrain from doing anything;

That interim order from the Land division was issued on February 3, 2017. On February 9, 2017, when the garnishee proceedings in the Executions and Bailiffs division came up for the final hearing, we, as the court record shows, brought its existence to the attention of court.

The question as to whether that earlier and unrelated interim order from the Land division operated to stay the garnishment proceedings then in the Executions and Bailiffs division was framed and argued.

Court ruled that that interim order could not stop the payment being ordered because: The interim order from the Land division did not by its text or purpose stay the execution proceedings before the Execution division.

An application to stay the garnishee proceedings would have had to be specifically made and obtained before the executing court or a superior court; A registrar of one division, i.e Land division, could not and in fact did not stay the proceedings before a registrar of another division, i.e. Executions and Bailiffs division.

The interim order did not arise out of the execution proceedings then before it but out of other matters in the Land division which did not involve or concern Stanbic, the garnishee bank. Garnishee proceedings are strictly between the garnishee bank and the judgment creditor. The judgment debtor is ‘alien’ to them.

From the above, it should therefore be very clear that the court order ordering the transfer of the money from LDC’s accounts was given in the Executions and Bailiffs’ division on February 9, 2017, six days after the interim order of the Lands division.

Later court orders take precedence over earlier ones. This is more so ‘when the court making the later order is fully aware of and pronounces itself on the earlier court order.

The status, import and impact, if any, of the earlier interim order issued by the Lands division on the obligation of Stanbic bank to pay over the money to our client, was argued by counsel, it was judicially considered and determined by the executing court before it ordered the transfer of the monies from LDC’s accounts.

From the above, we wish to state, therefore, that the transfer of monies off LDC’s accounts in Stanbic bank was perfectly legal, legitimate, just and fair.

Court order requiring the attorney general to pay the judgment debtor. When LDCs application came up in the Lands division on the February 10, 2017, the payment of the monies off LDC’s account with Stanbic bank had been ordered and completed a day earlier on February 9, 2017.

In other words, that application had been overtaken by events. Again, with the highest professional and ethical standards, we brought the court order under which the monies were transferred to the attention of court.

The court, nonetheless, proceeded and heard the matter. We only wish to note that the law requires all courts to take judicial notice of all valid court judgments and orders.

As LDC and its lawyers are aware, our client was dissatisfied with the ruling of the Land division of the High court of the February 10, 2017. Under his instructions, we filed a notice of appeal against that ruling on February 14, 2017.

LDC made its offending statements in the press on February 20, 2017 when the matter was and is still pending before the courts of law.

Demand for apology

Kampala Associated Advocates is internationally reputed as a premium law firm with significant associations. Our conduct of this matter was certainly lawful and above reproach.

We thus take serious exception to statements attributed to Othembi and Lukyamuzi in the media. We demand that the two gentlemen, in their individual capacity, and the Law Development Centre as an institution, immediately retract the above statements and issue an apology.

Should they fail/refuse/omit/ignore to heed our demand, we shall proceed to institute legal proceedings against them at their own cost and peril.

The author is a senior partner at Kampala Associated Advocates