By Our Reporter
A Ugandan judge, Justice Lydia Mugambe is in jail in the United kingdom facing three offences of modern slavery.
The Oxfordshire resident Mugambe has been named by police and charged with three modern slavery offences.
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Lydia Mugambe, aged 49, of Lyne Road, Kidlington, has been charged with one count of conspiring to do an act to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law by a non-UK national.
The 49-year-old was also charged with one count of arranging or facilitating travel of another person with a view to exploitation.
Her final charge is one count of requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour.
A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said: “We have charged a woman in connection with a modern slavery investigation in Oxfordshire.
“The charges were authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service and are in connection with a modern slavery investigation involving one victim.”
A trial is set to take place at Oxford Crown Court on Monday, February 10, 2025, listed for three weeks.
Mugambe was charged with the offences on Wednesday, August 7 this year, UK media reports.
Lydia Mugambe, is a Ugandan lawyer who served as judge at the High Court of Uganda between May 2013 and September 2020. She was appointed to the High Court by President Yoweri Museveni, on 3 May 2013. Lady Justice Mugambe Ssali was subsequently appointed by President Museveni as Inspector General of Government on 18 September 2020.
She graduated from the Faculty of Law of Makerere University, Uganda’s largest and oldest public university, with a Bachelor of Laws. She was then awarded a Diploma in Legal Practice by the Law Development Centre, in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. She also holds a Master of Laws from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
Prior to her appointment to the High Court, Mugambe served as a Magistrate in Uganda’s lower courts.[3] She was appointed to the High Court of Uganda on 15 May 2013. She is assigned to the Civil Division of the court.
In January 2017, Justice Mugambe delivered a judgement against Mulago National Referral Hospital, which had been sued by Jennifer Musimenta and her husband Micheal Mubangaizi, for the disappearance of their newborn baby. The judge found the hospital culpable of negligence. Mugambe also awarded the couple USh85 million (approximately US$24,000) in damages.
The ruling is hailed by legal observers and non-profit organisations in Uganda, as a watershed judgment, towards the recognition of “the rights of poor, vulnerable and marginalized women”. The ruling was nominated for the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), award in 2017.
She’s married to celebrated former sports journalist Mark Ssali.
