Gedion Angachi Anyinya & 9 others v West Kenya Sugar Company Ltd [2016] KECA 502 (KLR)
The bottom line
#Kenya's Court of Appeal confirmed that sugarcane disputes must go to the Sugar Arbitration Tribunal, not the High Court, so the farmers' suit failed.
What this practically means
#Executive summary
#Questions the Court framed
#The issues the Court set itself to decide, in its own words.
- 1.Whether the learned judge erred in declining to exercise jurisdiction on the basis that all disputes between parties in the sugar industry fall outside the competence of the High Court, by reason of section 31 of the Sugar Act, 2001
- 2.Whether the learned judge erred in interpreting section 7 of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, given the supremacy clause in Article 2(4)
- 3.Whether the appellants' suit was res judicata by dint of Busia Chief Magistrate's Court Civil Suit No. 9 of 2012, Venswa Okwara Mutoka & 2 Others v West Kenya Sugar Company Limited
Key legal issues
#Whether the High Court had jurisdiction over the dispute or whether it lay before the Sugar Arbitration Tribunal
The tribunal had exclusive competence; all players - growers and millers - are 'parties' under the Sugar Act, and the absence of a sugar industry agreement does not oust the tribunal's jurisdiction. The High Court rightly struck out the suit.
Section 31(1) of the Sugar Act, 2001 established the Sugar Arbitration Tribunal to arbitrate disputes between parties under the Act. The 1st to 10th appellants were growers and the 11th appellant and the respondent were millers, so all were 'parties'. The dispute concerned supply of sugarcane, a key role defined under the Act. The Court rejected the argument that section 29 sugar industry agreements were a jurisdictional precondition.
Whether the Sugar Act, 2001 was inconsistent with the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 or had been overtaken by it
No inconsistency; the Act was saved under section 7 of the Sixth Schedule and its provisions were correctly applied by the trial court as at the date of the ruling.
Section 7(1) of the Sixth Schedule continues in force all law in force before the effective date, to be construed with adaptations necessary to conform with the Constitution. The Court agreed with the learned judge that nothing in the Sugar Act or Regulations offended the Constitution. The Crops Act, No. 16 of 2013, said to have repealed the Sugar Act, was not in force when the matter was before the trial court.
Whether the suit was res judicata by dint of CMCC No. 9 of 2012 (Busia)
Res judicata was not established: the parties differed, the matters were not directly and substantially in issue in both suits, and the earlier suit had been struck out for want of jurisdiction, hence not 'heard and finally decided'.
Under section 7 of the Civil Procedure Act, res judicata requires that the matter directly and substantially in issue was heard and finally decided by a competent court. The earlier Busia suit was struck out for want of jurisdiction; following Mulla on the Code of Civil Procedure, a matter dismissed for want of jurisdiction cannot be said to have been heard and finally decided. This ground of appeal succeeded, but it could not save the appeal.
Legal principles established
#- The Sugar Arbitration Tribunal established under section 31(1) of the Sugar Act, 2001 has jurisdiction to arbitrate disputes between 'parties' under the Act - growers, millers and outgrowers - even in the absence of a sugar industry agreement between them; section 29 is not jurisdictional.
- A matter is not res judicata where the former suit was struck out for want of jurisdiction, since it was not 'heard and finally decided' within the meaning of section 7 of the Civil Procedure Act.
Court orders
#- 1.Appeal dismissed
- 2.Costs of the appeal awarded to the respondent
The bench
#One judgment of the whole court — no separate or dissenting opinions.
- On appeal from
- High Court of Kenya at Bungoma
- HCCC No. 23 of 2012
- Jurisdiction invoked
- First appeal to the Court of Appeal against a ruling of the High Court (constitutional and statutory appellate jurisdiction; no specific provision cited in the judgment)
Relief refused
#The appeal (and thereby restoration of the appellants' suit and claim for injunction)
The Court upheld the High Court's finding that the High Court lacked jurisdiction, the dispute lying before the Sugar Arbitration Tribunal under section 31 of the Sugar Act, 2001
Costs
The appeal is dismissed with costs to the respondent.
Quotable passages
#Verbatim from the judgment, each located to the page it appears on in the official PDF — so these can be cited and checked directly.
We do not agree that the jurisdiction of the tribunal was dependent upon existence of agreements between the contending parties.
More importantly, the earlier suit had not been finally decided, it had been struck out for want of jurisdiction and therefore the subsequent suit was not res judicata.
Consequently, the appeal is dismissed with costs to the respondent.
Issues in the judgment
#The judgment states the appellants were plaintiffs in 'H.C.C.C. No. 23 of 2013' in paragraph 1, whereas the appeal is from HCCC No. 23 of 2012 per the title and cause line; an apparent typographical inconsistency in the year of the suit.
Key timeline
#Practical implications
#Frequently asked questions
#Later judgments citing this (1)
#Judgments in the corpus that rely on this one. Where the Court said how it treated the authority, that is shown.
Cite this brief
#Cite this brief
Caselaw, "Gedion Angachi Anyinya & 9 others v West Kenya Sugar Company Ltd [2016] KECA 502 (KLR)", Case Analysis (2016). Civil Appeal No. 117 of 2012. Source: https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/keca/2016/502/eng@2016-06-14
Suggested citation format for research notes or client memos. Always verify the original judgment before relying on any point.