Kabale, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The High Court sitting in Kabale has ordered the administration committee of Bishop Asili Nursery Day and Boarding Main College in Kabale Municipality to pay 25 million Shillings to Tadeo Ruzindantaro as fundamental damages over the disappearance of his daughter.
The case stems from events that began on April 23, 2018, when Ruzindantaro accused the college of releasing his daughter to his estranged wife, Mercy Kirande, with out his consent. In Civil Swimsuit No. 36 of 2022, Ruzindantaro alleges that the college’s head teacher, Sister Margaret Tusiime, conspired with Kirande to unlawfully eradicate the kid (then four years feeble) from Uganda and smuggle her to South Africa.
According to Ruzindantaro, he and Kirande had been married in 2003 nevertheless separated in 2010, after which Kirande left the nation and deserted the kid. Years later, when Ruzindantaro’s recent wife, Harmless Tukamushaba, went to the college to fetch the kid’s file card as a guardian, a teacher told her that the pupil had sat most effective two papers earlier than being taken to South Africa by Kirande, with the serve of the head teacher.
Ruzindantaro reported the subject at Kabale Police Space under SD Ref. 57/26/04/2018 and changed into once instructed to pursue a civil case. He later filed the case in the High Court, attempting for fundamental damages for psychological and emotional torture, besides to the peril introduced on by the unauthorised removal of his daughter.
However, it later emerged in every single place in the court listening to that the kid changed into once illegally picked up from college by Kirande’s end top friend Phionah Rukundo and remained with her in Kampala. Monica Muhumuza Nzeirwe, Kabale district senior probation and social welfare officer and the office of Household and Puny one Protection Unit at Kabale central police station furthermore submitted a file earlier than the court pointing out that the kid changed into once recovered from Rukundo’s predicament and re-united with Ruzindantaro after 5 years.
In a file, Muhumuza acknowledged that the kid had been taken by Rukundo over mistreatment and harassment by Ruzindantaro and his recent wife, Tukamushaba. Muhumuza furthermore acknowledged that the kid changed into once struggling to fetch college costs and assorted scholastic materials.
However, in her testimony to the court, the sufferer trashed the file, announcing that she changed into once picked up from college and introduced to Rukundo’s home with out knowledge of her father until they had been reunited in 2023. The child testified that she had no field with her father, nor did she have any war in getting college costs.
The child furthermore testified that she fortunately stays with Ruzindantaro and is receiving college costs from him to proceed with studies at Immaculate Heart Ladies College-Nyakibale in Rukungiri district. The child furthermore testified earlier than the court that she changed into once no longer involved with the mummy the total time she spent with Rukundo.
In a ruling on Wednesday, Justice Karoli Lwanga Ssemogerere, Kabale High Court focal point on, acknowledged that failure of Rukundo to appear earlier than court by summons diminished any mitigating circumustances in desire of the college administration in apportionment of the felony responsibility because she failed to appear to stamp under what cases she took a baby who did no longer belong to her for five years.
Ssemogerere furthermore says that the college administration violated Youngsters’s Act, Cap 62, and Part 5(1) (a) of the Youngsters’s act which states that it will be duty of a mum or dad, guardian or somebody having custody of a kid to preserve that child and in particular the duty offers a baby the simply to training. He furthermore states that the college administration deprived Article 31 (4) of the structure, which indicates that it’s a simply and duty of fogeys to address and ship up their youngsters.
Justice Ssemogerere ordered the college administration to pay 25 million Shillings to Ruzindataro as fundamental damages for the psychological torture he went thru when his daughter changed into once kidnapped. He furthermore ordered the college administration to pay half of the costs Ruzindantaro has incurred in every single place in the run well with.
Kalenzi Godfrey, the college bursar, Oddo Byamugisha, George Nsaba, college administration committee people, and their attorney, Justus Muhangi of Muhangi Justus & Companions Advocates, who had been in court, declined to reveal to our reporter in regards to the court ruling.
Ruzindantaro’s attorneys, Timothy Twikirize and Godwin Masereka, welcomed the ruling, announcing that it is a ways an look-opener to school directors to give protection to youngsters who’re under their care.
Ruzindantaro accused the college administration of utilizing social media to tarnish his repute.
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