The court in a lengthy judgment has this morning ordered business mogul Patrick Bitature’s lawyers to pay costs incurred in the Case
In the ruling, Justice Stephen Mubiru condemned Bitature’s Senior Lawyer Fred Muwema for misleading his client when he failed to give him proper legal advice, for which he pays heavily in millions of shillings!
“This application catastrophically lacks a legal basis. The legal costs and time wasted in this litigation could have been avoided entirely if the applicants’ advocates had discharged their duties to the expected minimum standards of professional competence. It qualifies as a “rare and exceptional” case where it would not be fair for the applicants to bear the costs. The costs must be met by the applicants’ advocates in person,” reads part of the ruling.
The South African Based Vantage Capital Fund accused Ugandan businessman Patrick Bitature of intentionally using underhand methods to default the firm on a $10m loan.
According to Vantage Capital Fund Managers Proprietary Limited, an equity, and debt company, Bitature borrowed the loan which is about shs36b from them, and that it accumulated to USD 34m which is about Shs124b accumulative interest.
“Generally, the court is slow to penalize counsel with the burden of having to pay the costs of litigation out of his or her own pocket, unless the circumstances of the case are such that justice demands that it be done. An advocate should not be held to have acted unreasonably simply because he or she acted for a client who has a bad case, but it would be quite different if the advocate gives his or her assistance to proceedings that are an abuse of process. I find that in filing this application, the advocates’ default rises to a “rare and exceptional” level,” reads part of the petition.
“Basic professional competence demands that an advocate seeking interlocutory relief should first establish that there is a substantive matter pending before the court, which they did not.
Basic professional competence further demands that an advocate seeking the intervention of this court in proceedings pending before a magistrate’s court should do so by invoking its prerogative or supervisory powers, and not otherwise. In the same proceeding, they join as respondent advocates whose only role was to facilitate their client’s cause, thereby seeking to restrain professional colleagues from carrying out their duties as officers of the court. It is an advocate’s professional responsibility to ensure that all suits and applications filed possess a proper legal basis, yet this application is entirely misconceived and devoid of legal foundation,” it adds.
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