| Motto | A Tradition of Legal Excellence |
|---|---|
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1970 |
| Director | Frank Nigel Othembi |
Administrative staff | 50+ |
| Students | 2000+ [1] |
| Location | , 00°19′28″N32°34′07″E / 0.32444°N 32.56861°E |
| Campus | Urban |
| Website | www |
  Location in Kampala | |
The Law Development Centre (LDC) is an educational institution in Uganda for higher learning that offers various legal courses ranging from one month to one year. [2]
The LDC is the only institution in Uganda that offers the Bar Course leading to the award of the post-graduate Diploma in Legal Practice. In the early 2000s, the LDC was plagued by a high failure rate among students, as high as 90 percent in some years. The LDC, together with the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the Uganda Law Society, have designed changes that include a pre-admission written examination for students, continuing education requirements for LDC lecturers, and instruction in teaching methods for all academic staff. The LDC library has also been updated with written literature as well as increased Internet access for students. [3]
The LDC is located on Makerere Hill along Gadafi Road, just outside the southern perimeter of the main campus of Makerere University. This is less than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) south of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University and approximately 3.5 kilometres (2 mi), by road, north-west of Kampala's central business district. [4] The coordinates of the LDC campus are 0°19'28.0"N, 32°34'07.0"E (Latitude:0.324444; Longitude:32.568611). [5]
In 2018, the government of Uganda approved plans to establish regional campuses of the LDC in the Eastern Ugandan town of Mbale, Western Region, Mbarara and Northern Region, Lira. The Mbarara campus was established and operationalized effective in the 2018/2019 financial year. [6]
The LDC was established in 1970 by the Law Development Centre Act as a government-owned institution of higher learning responsible for "research, law reform, publications, law reporting and community legal services". LDC has a management committee that is responsible for policy formulation. Those policies are implemented by the director through various institutional departments. [2] The first director of the LDC was Kutlu Fuad. He was succeeded in 1972 by Francis Muzingu Ssekandi, who was later elevated to the High Court in 1974 and in 1978 to Uganda's first Court of Appeals, later renamed the Uganda Supreme Court. The current director is Frank Nigel Othembi. [7]
Administratively, the LDC is divided into the following departments: [8]
(a) Library Department (b) Library Publishers Department (c) Finance Department (d) Department of Research and Publications (e) Legal Education & Legal Aid (f) Department of Law Reporting (g) Department of Law
The current eligible Ugandan universities whose law students are allowed to join the LDC includes the following:
International University of East Africa
As of July 2014, the courses offered at the Law Development Centre included the following: core and major subjects are :Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, Commercial Law, Land Transaction Law, Domestic & Family Law. Other subjects include: Art of Advocacy, Judicial Conduct, Professional Ethics, Legislative Drafting & Accountancy for Lawyers. The center employs full-time academic staff and also uses the services of several visiting professionals and people with experience who are drawn from among a wide selection of members of the Ugandan professional legal community. [9]
Notable alumni include:
Makerere University is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922, and the oldest currently active university in East Africa. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of nine colleges and one school, offering programmes for about 36,000 undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates. These colleges include College of Natural Sciences (CONAS), College of Health Sciences (CHS), College of Engineering Art & Design (CEDAT), College of Agriculture and Environmental Studies (CAES), College Of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS), College of Humanities & Social Sciences (CHUSS), College of Computing and Information Sciences (COCIS), College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources & Bio-security (COVAB), College of Education and External Studies (CEES) and Makerere University Business School (MUBS). In addition, Makerere has onother campus in Eastern Uganda Jinja City.
Makerere is a neighborhood in the city of Kampala, Uganda's capital city. The name also applies to the hill on which this neighborhood is perched; one of the original seven hills that constituted Kampala at the time of its founding, in the early 1900s.
Makerere College School is a co-educational government aided O and A Level school founded in 1945 by Makerere University. In 1945 Makerere University was still a constituent college of the University of London. The school is located on the main campus of Makerere University, adjacent to the College of Education and External Studies on Makerere Hill Road.
Francis M. Ssekandi, is a lecturer in law at the Columbia Law School and, since 1 July 2007, a judge of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal. He has published articles on law and development, human rights and good governance. Ssekandi is a former judge in the High Court/Justice of Appeal (1972–1974) and a member of the Uganda Supreme Court (1974–1979).
Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) is a private University affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda. The University is owned by the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Uganda. It is licensed by the Uganda National Council for Higher Education. UMU consists of seven Faculties, two Institute, six Campuses, nine Departments, and three schools. As of March 2022, total student enrollment is 4,632. Of these, about 1,500 students were residential, while nearly 3,000 students were enrolled in UMU's distance learning programs. The number of staff members was over 400.
Uganda Management Institute (UMI) is a government-owned national center for training, research, and consultancy in the field of management and administration in Uganda. It is one of the nine public universities and degree-awarding institutions in the country outside the military.
Benjamin Josses Odoki is a former Chief Justice of Uganda, former Supreme Court Justice of Eswatini, and current Chairman of the Committee of Constitutional Experts for Drafting the EAC Political Federation Constitution, the committee drafting the constitution for the East African Confederation. Odoki served as the tenth Chief Justice of Uganda from 2001 to 2013 after fifteen years as a Judge on the Supreme Court of Uganda. He was a State Attorney of Uganda previous to his appointment to the court in 1986.
Makerere University Business School (MUBS) is the school of business of Makerere University, Uganda's oldest university. MUBS provides business and management education at the certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi is a Ugandan politician and lawyer who served as the eighth vice president of Uganda from 24 May 2011 to 21 June 2021. Prior to that, he served as the Speaker of Parliament from 2001 to 2011. He served as Member of Parliament for Bukoto County Central constituency from 1996 to 2021.
Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) is a constituent college of Makerere University, Uganda's oldest university. The schools of the college offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the biomedical sciences, health sciences, human medicine and public health, covering a broad range of disciplines and specialties.
Uganda Pentecostal University (UPU), is a private university in Uganda.
Jennifer Semakula Musisi is a Ugandan lawyer and public administrator. She is the first City Leader in Residence at Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative at the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. She was appointed to this position in January 2019.
Cavendish University Uganda (CUU) is licensed and accredited by the Uganda National Council for Higher Education (UNCHE), and was established in 2008. It is ranked 20th best university in Uganda and 10593th in the world.
General David Rubakuba Muhoozi is a Ugandan military officer and lawyer. Since 6 June 2021, he has been serving as the Minister of State for Internal Affairs, replacing Obiga Kania.
King Ceasor University is a private university previously known as St. Augustine International University.
Professor John Ntambirweki was a lawyer, academic and academic administrator in Uganda, the third-largest economy in the East African Community. He was the Vice Chancellor of Uganda Pentecostal University, a private university, which was accredited by the Uganda National Council for Higher Education in 2005.
Esta Nambayo is a Ugandan lawyer and judge who was appointed to the High Court of Uganda on 4 October 2019.
Joyce Kavuma, is a Ugandan lawyer and judge on the High Court of Uganda. She was appointed to that court by president Yoweri Museveni, on 8 February 2018.
As of June 2020 there are eleven recognized universities in Uganda, that offer education in law. There is, in addition, one specialised school, the Law Development Centre, that teaches aspects of the law that the universities do not teach. The Centre prepares and tests candidates for the Uganda Bar Examination.
Flavian Zeija is a Ugandan lawyer, academic and judge, on the High Court of Uganda, who doubles as the country's Principal Judge, effective 25 December 2019. In Uganda, a Principal Judge is responsible for supervising the justices of the High Court, including the assignment of duties to members of the Court. The Principal Judge is also responsible for supervising the Magistrates Courts below the High Court.
