Onegi & 5 Ors Vs Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 29 of 2016) [2019] UGCA 23 (4 April 2019)

Flynote

Criminal law|Evidence Law|Burden of Proof|Evaluation of Evidence

Case summary

The court held that as the first appellate court, it is required to evaluate the evidence and draw independent inferences on matters of law and fact. That if the judge had properly evaluated the evidence, she would have wished to find out the reason of the appellant walking with the clutches. That the judge merely glossed over the issue of torture and didn’t make any specific finding on it. That it was beyond doubt that the appellants were tortured. That the charge and caution statement signed by the appellant was illegal since it was signed by someone who didn’t understand the language it was recorded. That the admission of the identification was faulty as there were no favorable identification conditions and the identification parade wasn’t conducted. That there was no evidence to conclude that the recovered gun was the murder weapon since no ballistic report was confirmed the allegation. That the trial magistrate didn’t evaluate the evidence properly in totality.

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