The High Court of Uganda on Monday at around 3 pm sat to deliver a ruling regarding the case that was filed by students of the Law Development Centre (LDC) against the institution of higher learning. The application for judicial review was dismissed in favour of LDC as lacking merit.
Students of the LDC for the academic year 2017/2018, and earlier, in November dragged the Centre to court accusing it of intentionally recording low marks for the supplementary examinations that the students sat. The students also asked court to compel LDC to release their answer sheets and marking guides for the supplementary examinations that they sat in August 2018 and February 2019.
A ruling was scheduled to be delivered on the 9th December 2019. The lady justice Lydia Mugambe in her ruling condemned students who fail LDC exams and run to court to secure what she called “court sanctioned results”.
She called the acts “mediocrity” for students to think that they can fail exams and use the courts of law to appear on the graduation list. The students had also sought to halt the graduation process that is scheduled to take place this Friday, and they were not successful.
Regarding the release of results, Justice Mugambe ruled that the institution is not under any legal obligation to release results for category A for academic year 2017/2018 and previous years as those exams were sat in error, results illegal.
She advised the students to apply to be readmitted to the bar course in order to be able to repeat failed subjects at a time that would be convenient to the center. On the plus side for the students, LDC has been ordered to return the money that was paid by the students as repeating fees to the institution in order for them to be able to sit those exams.
The students were advised to be humble and loyal to policies of the institution policies and not to resort to court every time they feel aggrieved.
As a result of the decision, over 270 students will be missing the 47th graduation ceremony.
The rules of passing the bar course require that a student must pass LDC within a period of 3 years including the year to which the student was admitted. Most of the students embroiled in the legal battles with LDC were admitted in the academic year 2017/2018. The academic year 2018/2019 passed and that of 2019/2020 is already ongoing, which is the last year for the students to have finished the course.
The end of the three years implies that instead of the students sitting their special exams, they will have to be readmitted to redo LDC afresh, including all the exams that they had earlier on passed.
They entirely rest at the mercy of LDC to extend that time if they can prove to have special circumstances. The Centre could refuse to extend the time and consider all those over 270 students to have failed. Considering these battles, that is a possibility.
