Ugandan lawyers who got their post-graduate diplomas at Rwanda’s law development school have been barred from practicing as lawyers in their home country Uganda.
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| Some of the lawyers trained in Rwanda meeting former Speaker at Uganda Parliament Rebecca Kadaga in 2020 |
Uganda, which is a Common Law jurisdiction
inherited from the British colonial masters, claims that Rwanda is a Civil Law
Jurisdiction inherited from Belgian colonial masters.
“For Ugandans who have qualifications from
non-Common law systems, our law is still restrictive” Prof Fredrick Sempebwa
the Chairperson of the Law Council Committee on Legal Education and Training
told The Eyer last week.
These lawyers who had their degrees in Uganda but went to Rwanda for a bar course are even not allowed to pursue any
other courses that other lawyers trained outside Uganda can pursue at Uganda’s
Law Development Centre (LDC).
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| A response the Uganda Law Council gave a lawyer trained in Rwanda |
The
Eyer has not obtained the number of such lawyers battling Uganda’s denial of
practice but has established that there were 254 of them who attended law
practice training in Rwanda from 2015-2019.
The Central African country is in the same blocs as
Uganda, in the East African Community (EAC) and the British Commonwealth of
Nations both of which Rwanda joined in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
Some students told The Eyer that they were already
redoing the same bar course at Uganda’s LDC after the country rendered their
qualifications from neighbouring Rwanda unwelcome in Uganda.
However, Andrew Bataamye who sued Uganda’s Law
Council at the High Court in Kampala on the same matter in 2020 said he is not yet
ready to go back to pursue the same qualifications he already has.
“I know many who have gone back to the law
development school here in Uganda and many still want to but I’m not ready to.
I will first exhaust all legal avenues available” he told The Eyer, mentioning that it's very costly to do a course he has already done.
A matter facing four lawsuits
Uganda’s denial, not to allow lawyers trained in
Rwanda to practice in Uganda has so far seen four legal challenges of which one
has been decided on.
After Bataamye, who had trained in Rwanda in 2014,
was defeated at the High Court, he appealed the decision but the case has not
been given a hearing date since 2020.
In the same year, iPeace, a Civil Society
Organisation registered in Rwanda took Uganda to the East African Court of
Justice (EACJ) over what they called the violation of the EAC Common Market
Protocol.
The case is scheduled to be heard in September
2022, according to the court’s deputy registrar Christine Mutimura.
The Eyer has also established that Uganda did not
submit its response to iPeace’s lawsuit against it at EACJ.
In 2021, another lawyer Benjamin Ekyokutangaza took
the matter to the constitutional court in Kampala and the case has not been
heard.
“We applied for either fixing the matter for
hearing or a judgement be entered based on our written submissions but we
haven’t heard from the court,” Ekyokutangaza told The Eyer on Thursday last
week.
Some students have suggested that Rwanda should
officially inform Uganda that they are a country that uses the hybrid system
crafted by blending both Common and Civil law systems and how the students were
trained in the Common Law system.
Since last week, The Eyer contacted the legal
practice institute in Rwanda and the justice ministry whose minister is the
Attorney General but had not got a response by press time.
Rwanda has sought to find a stage in the English
cultures including the East African Community and the Commonwealth and at the
same time maintaining its old position in the Belgian and the French cultures.
Rwanda is a member of both the British Commonwealth and the French La Francophonie, also with the English-styled East African Community and the French-styled CEPGL blocs at the same time.
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