A day before the hearing date, the Respondent filed a notice
of a preliminary objection. The filing of the notice, consisting of two points,
goes contrary to rule 107 (1) of the Court of Appeal Rules, 2009 (the Rules)
which requires such notice to be given to the Appellant within three clear
days. That apart, there is a serious point of law which the court raised suo
motu. The point of law is whether the Court is clothed with jurisdiction to
entertain the appeal which appeared to have been filed outside the prescribed
time of sixty days. The issue was raised because the letter written by the
advocate for the Appellants appearing requesting to be supplied with copies of
proceedings, which incidentally is the date when the Notice of Appeal was
lodged, does not indicate to have been copied to the Respondent; whereby the
appeal was filed on 20th September, 2013 after almost a period of
four years.