Annette Karungi (R), Head Bar Course and Hamis Lukyamuzi, Secretary Law Development Centre while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Committee
MPs on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee have questioned officials from the Law Development Center (LDC) after students accused lecturers of demanding for sex and bribes to enable students pass.
This followed an earlier meeting held between the Legal Committee and students of LDC who broke down during their submission, informing MPs that the current management at LDC have turned the institution into a military facility, where students who raise concerns about their plight are victimized, with administrators ensuring that the complaining students don’t leave the institution as qualified advocates.
The concerns were raised by Robina Rwakoojo, the Chairperson Legal Committee, who said that during a meeting with the students at LDC at Parliament, students accused top officials at LDC of victimisation when the unfairly and arbitrary decisions taken by the institution are challenged by the students.
“There are rampant cases that some professional advisors and other officials solicit for sex from students to help them pass,” Rwakoojo said.
Asuman Basalirwa (Bugiri Municipality) informed LDC Administration that when the students were narrating the hellish life they undergo at LDC, many of them broke down in tears, asking LDC officials to explain why they have turned the education institution into a military facility, saying allegations of sex for marks taint the image of the legal profession.
“There were also concerns brought to this Committee of sexually transmitted marks and also monetary transmitted marks. People are paying to get admission at LDC in terms of money and sex. Those of us who have gone through that institution, that isn’t information we want to hear. Those are issues at your level as administrators you may not know but we have asked our sources to bring us information which we will bring to you,” said Basalirwa.
The same sentiments were shared by Rose Obiga (Terego DWR) who castigated LDC officials of militarizing the education institution arguing, “And when you are accused of molesting a student, how do you feel? Now it becomes an insult to be called a lawyer reason is because of the way you torment people. Why have you militarized that institution?” she asked.
Annette Karungi, Head Bar Course in her response described the issues raised in the petition as baseless and asked the Committee to throw out the pleas made by the students, and also asked for more time to respond to issues of sexual harassment because these weren’t raised in the main petition, earlier sent to LDC.
She said: “We had a meeting with the Director and we prepared a detailed written response, many of the issues that were highlighted, are indeed grave, they are extremely unfortunate but we haven’t had an opportunity to be able to respond to them in detail. I am of the humble opinion that because of the gravity of the allegations, it will only be fair to give us an opportunity to respond to them in detail.”
