Over 270 lawyers to miss LDC graduation
KAMPALA- More than 270 lawyers will miss the 47th Law Development Center (LDC) graduation that is slated for Friday following a court order that barred them for having sat their final supplemetary examinations illegally.
In her ruling on Monday, Justice Lydia Mugambe of the High Court in Kampala, held that as court, they cannot interfere with the mandate of the LDC or any other institution to determine who has passed or failed and therefore, cannot order LDC to release the withheld results of the affected lawyers.
“Based on the above, I am not convinced that this is a proper case for judicial review. The application is without merit and is dismissed. However, I will not sanction the applicants (lawyers) to costs to avoid any further acrimony between the two,” Justice Mugambe ruled.
“I hereby direct the applicants (lawyers) to take the instruction guidance of the respondent (LDC) and register to repeat all components of the failed subjects in the subsequent year.
“In addition, since they are no consequence, the respondent (LDC) is under no obligation to release to the applicants results of the said 4th term supplementary examinations,” she added.
Further in her ruling, Justice Mugambe expressed a worrying trend of students running to courts of law, to seek orders to be added onto graduation list, sit exams and other similar demands by using courts as a tool to intimidate academic institutions.
The judge also advised the affected lawyers to apply to be readmitted to the bar course in order to be able to repeat failed subjects at the time convenient to the centre.
She also ordered LDC to return the money that was paid by the affected students as repeating fees to the institution.
Background
The court decision arose from an internal memo dated July 11, 2019, requiring the law students from the academic year 2017/2018 to repeat their failed subjects and barring them from attending classes with those in academic year 2018/2019.
Core to this case was that the affected lawyers failed some bar course subject examinations. They were then, as required by law, to sit supplementary examinations commonly known as retakes.
However, they also failed the said retakes and yet under rule 17(6), a student can only sit a supplementary once and in case of failure, they repeat the entire subject in a full academic year and not only the failed component.
“After considering all factors and the law, the management committee reiterated the position of the law that once one fails a supplementary, they are required to repeat all components of the subject. The applicants were therefore, required not to sit failed components in the 4th term as they chose rather, they were required to sit all components of the failed subjects through a full academic year,” she further ruled.
