{UAH} CAN A COURT REFUSE TO LISTEN TO MY ISSUE?

CAN A COURT REFUSE TO LISTEN TO MY ISSUE?

Mulindwa Edward was charged with murder before a chief magistrate court in Manafwa. He was told that the court has no powers to hear his matter and would therefore be transferred to High court in Mbale which has the jurisdiction. He got confused and disturbed because he didn't know why they took to court in the first place yet they just sent him back to prison.

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

According to the law, all courts have specific powers/ authority to handle cases and matters brought before them. This is called jurisdiction. This means that a court may have limits when it comes to deciding matters before it. Some courts do not have a limit on which cases they can handle. When this happens we say that court has unlimited jurisdiction.

WHAT DETERMINES THIS LIMIT?

This limit can be based on the amount of money or value of the things that are being argued in court. (This is called Pecuniary Jurisdiction). It can also be based on where the case happened (This is commonly known as territorial jurisdiction) or the kind and nature of the actions and matters that a court can decide or over of the area. For example a Magistrate Grade 1 can only handle a cases between individuals where the matter does not involve more than twenty million shillings.

A court in Mbarara also cannot try a case that happened in Mbale because it does not have the territorial jurisdiction. So, for today, we shall talk about criminal jurisdiction. In matters of crimes, different courts are allowed to handle criminal cases based on the punishments for those crimes.

A magistrate Grade I court is allowed to handle criminal cases whose maximum penalty is not death or life imprisonment. Since the maximum punishment for Murder is the death penalty then the magistrate court cannot handle this matter. So when a court finds that the criminal offence before it has a bigger punishment that it is supposed to give, then it must refuse to handle that case.

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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