Rutashubanyuma
JF-Expert Member
- Sep 24, 2010
- 219,468
- 911,184
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- #2,881
The case of Reginald Mengi's will has captured the attention of many, but there has also risen a bunch of pettifoggers who have been analysing the judgment in favour of the aggrieved Mengi children.
We have gone through those legal positions and we were petrified by the presumptuous view that the judgment was correct in law a position we hotly dispute.
We believe without an iota of doubt the judgment has defrauded the Mengi widow and her twin sons in at least five legal frontiers.
Here is OUR TAKE:-
We have identified five points of law which make this decision to be a very bad law of whose precedence if not challenged and upset by the superior court will set a very bad precedence which can be used in future by courts of law to nullify valid wills in dubious circumstances as in this case....brace yourself and here we go...
1) THE EVIDENCE NOT THERE TO SUPPORT A COURT'S FINDING THE DECEASED WAS MEDICALLY UNFIT TO PREPARE AND SIGN THE WILL.
The issue which troubled us most is the issue of the way the learned Judge had diasannuled a valid will. The law of evidence is clear that where there is documentary evidence oral dispositions amount to "hearsay". In a matter of signed will of which an appended signature is not challenged the court has a duty to deem that document as "prima facie". Once the appended signature is not under any shred of doubt a ground of the deceased was not "mentally sound" has no legal legs to stand upon. Moreover, the learned Judge did not consider the two caveators made no effort while the deceased was still alive to ask the High Court to order medical examination of the deceased while he was still alive. So it is very puzzling to us on what grounds did the learned Judge sustained the specious claim that the deceased was not "medically sound" to prepare and sign his will.
Once the learned Judge established a fact the will was valid the only remaining ground was to expunge from the will all properties which did not belong to the deceased as claimed by the two caveators. It was wrong to empower caveators to upend the will of the decease on all assets and liabilities which belong to him. What the Learned Judge did was to condone fraud against the testament of the deceased which in itself set a bad precedence in the future to those who die testate. The High Court Judge is sending a loud and clear message the court can upset the written will on frivolous and vexatious grounds of the deceased was mentally unsound despite being represented by lawyers and his own hand written signature to boot.
This decision is a character assassination to all law firms which prepared the will because the High Court Judge overruled them and the whole caboodle mean the lawyers committed gross professional misconduct which is untrue...
2) THE COURT SEIZED POWERS TO APPOINT ESTATE EXECUTORS CONTRARY TO THE LAW.
Such powers belong to a clan and claims of expeditious resolution of the matter cannot give the High Court Judge the leeway and the latitude to be the law trespasser. And, without too much emphasis a trespasser is a trespasser regardless of his position in the judiciary.
3) THE SINGLE AUTHORITY APPLIED IN THE MATTER WAS IRRELEVANT TO GUIDE THE MATTER BEFORE THE COURT.
The authority the learned Judge picked has no bearing to the case in hand for reasons expounded above. The learned Judge made no effort at all to compare factual information between the two cases to ensure that authority passed the threshold of "relevance" and "appropriateness."
4) THE OVERRIDING OBJECTIVES PRINCIPLE WAS GROSSLY ABUSED.
Nowhere do the 'overriding objectives" principles say that law empowers the High Court with powers to vitiate written laws but it empowers the court to overlook non-compliance of its own rules by litigants in the interest of justice.
A claim of "convenience" for the High Court to pick administrator of estate will save time is hollow because it fails to take into account that the aggrieved party may appeal against this awful judgment. The learned Judge wrongly presumed his decision was accepted to all parties and that was a colossal error of judgment given a serialisation of a multitude of errors in his judgment pinpointed here. Of more concern is when the High Court Judge considers certain laws are "inconvenient" that he may violate them in the "interest of justice"!....can statutes be hammered by the Augusta House to impede the administration of justice? We find no evidence at all to support this postulation...we feel strongly the learned Judge was too blinded by favouritism to see such a position has no basis in law.
When a High Court judge disregard clear provisions of the law in the administration of justice clearly he is doing so for the purposes and intents of defrauding the widow of the deceased. That trial judge must be deemed to be very biased... what is scary is to see the attempt of this judgment to justify a court of law to subvert and suspend written laws of the land in order to pave way for "expeditious execution" of its decisions....so if the laws appear to be an encumbrance, the High Court can circumvent those laws in the interests of justice! The laws of land cease to be in the interest of justice simply because they tarry the fast execution of the decisions of the High Court Judge whose decisions may regrettably be offending the laws of the land...if this is not judicial anarchy we do not know what else it is...
5) THE LEARNED JUDGE WAS EXTREMELY BIASED IN FAVOUR OF THE TWO CAVEATORS.
The decision to pick two caveators to be the executors of the Reginald Mengi estate was reached without reasons being given why them and not the widow or a combination of the warring sides. Justice must not only be seen to have been done but must also be perceived to be done.
An average person will not see impartiality of picking only from one litigating side leaving the other side cold. And when no reasons are given why the learned judge trusted the two caveators more than the widow of the deceased perpetuation of feelings of elements of bias cannot and should not simply be wished away.
And, when the learned Judge instructs the caveators to distribute the assets and liabilities as they deem fit without consultations with the other side raises some eyebrows.
While we have no evidence to accuse the learned Judge of receiving kickbacks for reasons which are not clear to us the learned Judge was very compromised. Firstly, he invalidated a valid will contrary to the evidence act. Secondly, under the ruses of "overriding objectives" principle he illegally knocked down the law which empowers the clan to pick the administrator of the decease's assets and liabilities while picking one of the warring side which has vested interest to upend the will of the deceased as the executors of the estate of the deceased. The wanton abuse of the "overriding objectives" principles and the violations of the evidence act convinced us to propound as such.....expositions.