As preparations for acquiring a college status are still going on, Makerere Law School is experiencing crisis among its staff over leadership positions.
According to trusted sources, the law school does not have a substantive head of department among its five departments. This is because most of the acting heads of departments are not in line with accreditation guidelines where one to qualify as a head of department he/she has to be a staff of Makerere University at a rank of senior lecturer aged 56 years and below.
The school is comprised of five departments which include; the department of Law and Jurisprudence, Public and Comparative Law, Environmental Law, Human Rights and Peace Center and Commercial Law department. All the current heads of the above departments are below the essential necessities to head a department therefore are supposed to remain in the acting capacity.
There are only two staff members who qualify to remain in their positions and these are Associate Professor Christopher Mbazira and Dr. Ronald Naluwairo who serve as Law School principal and deputy principal respectively.
Those in acting capacity are; Dr. Zahara Nampewo the Acting Director Human Rights and Peace Centre, Professor Emmanuel Kasimbazi the Acting Head, Department of Environmental Law, Dr. Phionah Muhwezi Mpanga, the Acting Head of Department – Commercial Law while the acting Head of department of Law and Jurisprudence, Atim Patricia Odongo who has been an assistant lecturer is currently pursuing her PhD in South Africa which is in contrary to the Makerere University Human Resource Manual that indicates that no one should head a department when he/she is undertaking academic studies.
The University Academic Registrar Mr. Alfred Masikye Namoah said that a call for nominations for the positions of heads of departments was made on 9th January 2020 but only one candidate from the department of Commercial Law submitted in the application. This prompted him to call off all nominations till further notice.
