KAMPALA.
The Cabinet has endorsed the scraping of the 55-year monopoly that the Law Development Centre (LDC) has enjoyed as the sole institution in the country teaching the Post-graduate Diploma in Legal Practice course .
In Uganda, no lawyer can be allowed to represent a client in court without a Bar Course certificate obtained from the LDC. But the office of the Attorney General is now working on a process to ensure a unified body, the National Legal Examinations Centre, is established to examine the law students who would have sat their Bar course exams from various accredited institutions and universities.
“Cabinet has approved and commenced the process of repealing the Law Development Centre Act, Cap. 251, in order to propose a Bill establishing the National Legal Examinations Centre, which will enable the decentralisation of the training of the Post-graduate Diploma in Legal Practice programme by accredited centres and accredited law schools,” an August 4 statement by the LDC read in part.
“The National Legal Examinations Centre will prepare a unified examination for the award of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice,” it added.
Concerns about quality of lawyers
Previous attempts to open up other institutions to teach the Bar Course were frustrated on account that the quality of lawyers who would be churned out would be compromised. But Justice Irene Mulyagonja, the chairperson of the Uganda Law Council, yesterday dismissed restrictions as unhelpful, given the more than 3,000 students at LDC.
“This matter was discussed at the stakeholders’ conference. There are now 3,000 students. What mentoring and coaching is going on at LDC? There is none. So does it make sense to continue pretending that you are teaching quality? I see no reason,” Justice Mulyagonja said.
“Everyone wants their child to go to LDC because people think there is money in law, but what do you do then? Even with the 3,000 students, we are struggling. What is happening at LDC is not mentoring and coaching but teaching, which is supposed to happen at the university level. We don’t have the quality,” she added.
Weighing in on the quality fears, the Attorney General, Mr Kiryowa Kiwanuka, said: “This will not be the first place to do unified exams. They have to pass the Bar exams first,” Mr Kiryowa said.
On when the new system would come into place, Mr Kiryowa said: “We have already started the process, I can’t tell exactly when it will come, but it’s a work in progress.”
Justice Minister Norbert Mao said it doesn’t matter now where one trains from as long as they pass the final exams.
“If you are worried about the quality, what makes the quality of a lawyer is the exposure to practice work. LDC is now interested in having the teaching decentralised. What matters is to pass the exams. It’s like sports, it doesn’t matter where you have trained from, you may train from Kapchorwa for a marathon in New York, as long as you excel,” Mr Mao said.
“Having an LDC monopoly did not improve the quality of lawyers, maybe you can say it might drop further,” he continued.
In 2019, then Justice Minister Kahinda Otafiire reasoned that it was not necessary to force those joining LDC to sit the pre-entry exams since all the then 12 universities teaching the law course were accredited by the Law Council to teach the Law.
Background
For decades, the Law Development Centre (LDC) has been the only institution in Uganda mandated to offer the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, a requirement for admission to the Bar.
However, rising enrolments—from just 60 students decades ago to more than 3,000 today—has raised serious concerns about the institution’s capacity to provide quality mentorship and practical legal training.
Critics argue that LDC has become overstretched, functioning more like a lecture hall than a centre for legal apprenticeship.