Court dismisses BOU’s Appeal to Join DTB-Ham Case

KAMPALA, UGANDA: Court of Appeal in Kampala has dismissed Bank of Uganda’s application seeking to join the Diamond Trust Banks (DTB) vs Ham Enterprises case, rendering the application, as ‘Amicus curie’ (friends of court).

In a court ruling on Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Chief justice Richard Buteera, Kenneth Kakuru and Christopher Madrama who presided over the court session stated that it was not proper for the Central Bank, which opposed the High Court Judgement over the same to come in court on a matter that requires a neutral party.

“A friend of court must be a neutral and impartial person, not one claims to have been affected by the decision of the court. The applicant can only be joined as a party to the case after a formal application,” the judges ruled.

They also noted that on several occasions BOU publicly sided with DTB in criticizing the decision of High court judge Henry Peter Adonyo.

BOU was henceforth advised to re-file their application in court on Monday 1st February 2021and serve the respondents(HAM) on the same date.

The High Court has also set 25th February 2021 to deliver the judgement on this application.

In the appeal before this court DTB challenges the High Court’s decision which declared the process in which DTB Kenya lent Ham Enterprises over 120 billion shillings as illegal since it didn’t have a license from the Central Bank of Uganda as provided for under the law.

DTB was ordered to refund all the money which was collected from Ham Enterprises bank Accounts under the guise of loan repayment on top of refunding all land titles which he had deposited in Bank as security.