“LDC is the biggest fraud and a scam institution that only exists because of the law,” Ssemakadde told students attending a lecture at Makerere University back in 2021.
Kampala, Uganda: Four years after branding the Law Development Centre (LDC) a “fraud” and “unconstitutional monopoly,” Uganda Law Society President Isaac Ssemakadde has been vindicated, as government okayed the move to repeal the LDC Act and overhaul the country’s legal training system.
In a statement issued August 4, 2025, LDC confirmed that Cabinet had approved the drafting of a new Bill to establish a National Legal Examinations Centre, a body that will decentralise the Bar Course and strip the institution of its exclusive mandate over training and certification of legal practitioners in Uganda.
According to the statement, a copy of which DailyExpress has seen, the new Examinations Centre will be tasked with administering a unified national examination for the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, effectively liberalising legal training across accredited universities and institutions.
“This change will enable decentralisation of training… by accredited institutions and accredited law schools,” the statement issued by LDC’s administration, read in part.
The announcement marks a major policy shift, one that mirrors Ssemakadde’s stinging critique in 2021, when he accused LDC of entrenching inequality, gatekeeping legal practice, and offering no constitutional justification for its monopoly over Uganda’s bar certification.
Ssemakadde’s Uncompromising Stand:
Back in 2021, during a fiery guest lecture at Makerere University’s School of Law, Ssemakadde didn’t mince words. “LDC is the biggest fraud and a scam institution that only exists because of the law,” he told students attending a lecture titled “Transforming Legal Education: The Role of an Advocate in Promoting Social Justice and Transforming Society.”
The outspoken Ssemakadde argued that the lawyers who created the LDC statute never attended it themselves; they trained in the Inns of Court in London, where systems were apprenticeship-based and open-ended.
“The law should be amended to permit a non-traditional route to the bar… Then we shall see who wins the great questions of the day: activists or the LDC guys?” he said back then.
To Ssemakadde, the LDC model was elitist, rigid, and exclusionary, with high failure rates, expensive retakes, and unjust entry restrictions that disproportionately blocked talented would-be advocates from legal practice.
He wondered why LDC was not just an examining body, like the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) or Uganda Business and Technical Examinations Board (UBTEB), that only test candidates, but does not teach.
He further questioned why Uganda couldn’t adopt a bar examination-only model, similar to India’s AIBE, where candidates can prepare for the Bar wherever they want—and attempt it as many times as necessary until they pass.
Ssemakadde’s remarks had been dismissed by some Makerere students, who insisted that attending LDC was the only path to practising law. But his rebuttal was swift and sharp: “Male Mabirizi didn’t go to LDC. He represents himself in the Supreme Court and at the East African Court of Justice. Who says LDC is the only way?”
He concluded that LDC could only ever train “meek and humble” lawyers—not the kind of fearless legal activists needed to hold powerful institutions accountable in Uganda’s volatile political and judicial climate.
LDC’s Decline Begins:
Under the proposed new structure, the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice will no longer be exclusively taught at LDC. Instead, LDC will become one of several accredited training centres, and admissions will now be preceded by a national pre-entry exam to manage demand and uphold academic quality.
The centre also confirmed it would not admit a new cohort in 2025, having already hosted two overlapping intakes. Admissions will resume in January 2026. “We cannot have another admission before the current Academic Year completes their studies due to human resource and infrastructural constraints,” LDC noted in its August 4th statement.
The National Legal Examinations Centre is expected to begin operations by early 2026, with its first national bar exams rolled out that year.
If you would like your article/opinion to be published on Uganda’s most authoritative news platform, send your submission on: [email protected]. You can also follow DailyExpress on WhatsApp and on Twitter (X) for realtime updates.
