For two years now, Makerere University has not only continued to collect tuition and other fees from this distraught student, but also gone ahead to issue her with examination permits for each of the four semesters in question.
Inexplicably though, the university just won’t let Samiiha Nalwooga access to her academic results for any of the tests, course works and exams that she has submitted/sat for during this period. In the meantime, Samiiha’s classmates continue to enjoy unrestrained access to their results.
BACKGROUND
At the beginning of the problem, Samiiha thought she could engage the administrators at her College of Health Sciences (CHS) where she is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Biomedical Engineering so as to reach an amicable settlement but this yielded no results.
Finding herself between the rock and a hard place, the final year student engaged the services of a legal aid provider. Campus Bee has seen a series of letters sent by Samiiha’s lawyers Centre for Legal Aid to various authorities at Makerere University between November 2015 and April 2016, seeking for clarification on the situation and access to the distraught student’s results, but these too have largely gone unanswered.
In one of the few correspondences replied to by the University, Makerere’s Academic Registrar Mr. Alfred Namoah Masikye on receiving one of these letters on 17 November 2015 ambiguously referred Samiiha’s lawyers to the College Registrar of CHS, one Ms. Fatumah Nakatudde, “to provide you with the necessary information” about the student’s situation. A follow up with Ms. Nakatudde yielded no fruits as she chose to ignore the letter.
Fade up with Makerere’s dilly-dallying, Samiiha served the university with a formal access to information request on 28 April 2016, seeking for the immediate release of her academic results. The university ignored this request, too.
On 30 August 2016, Samiiha’s lawyers served the University Secretary with a lawsuit challenging its unjustified denial of the student access to her academic results “without any formal explanation or due process.” In her affidavit, the final year student decries the university’s conduct which “has prevented me from assessing my academic performance, apprising my sponsors on my academic progress, and effectively mobilizing funding and preparing for the subsequent semesters.”
In that case, the student is seeking for Court orders directing Makerere to not only release her results but also compensate her in damages for the stress, suffering and other inconvenience she has so far suffered.
Makerere was by law required to file in Court its defence within fourteen days from the date of being served with the suit. It was also summoned to appear before the Chief Magistrate’s Court of Mengo on 14 September 2016 for the hearing of the matter.
PRESENT TIME
At 4pm yesterday, the Mengo Court presided over by Chief Magistrate Esther Nasambu was informed that Makerere university had neither filed any defence nor turned up in Court to defend itself despite being duly served with the relevant court documents. It is on this premise that Samiiha’s lawyer Isaac Ssemakadde was allowed by Her Worship to argue the matter in the absence of the university’s lawyers.
Mr. Ssemakadde asked Court to not only order Makerere to release his client’s results “within one week from the date of the ruling” but also award the student over thirty million (30M) in damages to be paid by the university for being in contempt of its own internal policies, guidelines and regulations; breaching of contract; and continuing to profiteer from the student’s misery by collecting tuition from her without releasing her results.
Her Worship Nasambu has set 21st October 2016 as the date on which she will deliver her ruling.
