By Our Reporters
Frank Nigel Othembi, the Director Law Development Center (LDC) has spoken out about the proposal by Parliament to scrap pre-entry exams for young training lawyers seeking to join the Center for the 9 months Bar Course training. In an exclusive interview with this news website, Othembi said: “We are ready as LDC to take on any number of students enrolling for the Bar Course and that resolution by Parliament is coming at a time when we have already written to Law Council calling for the review of the pre-entry exams because it has been on for 6 years now and the time is ripe for us to review on how well it has worked.” He said because capacity has been built overtime, the LDC management is ready to carry on with legal training with or without pre-entry exams being in place. Some political leaders like Justice Minister Kahinda Otafiire had, while contributing to the debate in Parliament, argued that the pre-entry exams was introduced to mitigate against numbers that had at some point overwhelmed the LDC regarding the Bar Course classes. But Othembi said the larger motivation for pre-entry was more to do with desire to ensure quality of students joining the Bar Course than space limitations. He expressed fears that scrapping pre-entry will enable everybody who finishes the Bar Course at the Law School to join LDC and thereby hurting quality. “And I can predict that in that case the failure rate will increase because many of the weak students, that would be weeded out through pre-entry, will be enrolled and that’s the only challenge I foresee with scrapping pre-entry, otherwise for us as LDC we are ready to take on and manage any number and it will all depend on what our leaders and policy makers come up with.” He said the capacity to accommodate larger numbers had been realized through the opening up of the LDC study center/campus in Mbarara which commences operations September this year. This means students who will be coming through the August pre-entry will be the pioneer beneficiaries of the Mbarara Center for those that will choose to enroll and study from there for one reason or the other. Othembi disclosed that even Mbale and Gulu will be opening in the subsequently financial year since the necessary approvals and authorization have already been obtained. He clarified that even without pre-entry being scrapped, LDC never based it’s admission decisions on the space limitations some think it faces. “It has always been failure to pass the pre-entry exam set by the Law Council otherwise we have always been ready for any number even if everybody who sat pre-entry passed and you have 100% of them coming to join LDC,” he said explaining that Law Council is the one which sets and marks the pre-entry exams and only gives LDC a list of students who have qualified for the training. He also clarified that as LDC management they haven’t received any formal communication as yet from Parliament regarding the resolution to scrap pre-entry exams. “Its true I have personally spoken to some members of that committee who have confirmed that they made that recommendation. We shall determine how to act when we finally get the formal communication and the Law Council will inevitably have to be part of the decision and the direction we take as LDC because they are key stakeholders,” he said. He explained that regarding how fast the new position gets operationalized would depend on how fast the Law Council, in consultation will Parliament and other stakeholders, reaches consensus and guides on the way forward. “For us as management we are implementors and we are ready to move and act in whatever way and whenever our bosses the policy makers ask us to,” explained Othembi who is his second term as Director LDC. Gratefully as Director LDC, Othembi is by law also part of the decision-making at Law Council where he sits on the Committee on Legal Education. “We shall be finding out more from the Law Council regarding any formal communication they maybe having already regarding that matter,” he said. The MPs, now pushing to scrap pre-entry exams, have previously been accused of conflict of interest regarding the LDC matter after some of them either tried and failed to join LDC because of pre-entry or joined but failed to graduate having failed to pass the LDC exams which Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah onetime likened to torture chamber. The case in point is outspoken Rwemiyaga MP Theodore Sekikubo who recently missed graduation and unsuccessfully tried to use Court to compell LDC to graduate him. In arriving at their new position scrapping the pre-entry exams, the MPs argued that there are many other steps that can be undertaken to ensure only meriting quality graduates or lawyers come out of LDC, something Othembi says he agrees to. For comments, call/text/WhatsApp us on 0703164755!
