By Spy Uganda
Kampala: President Museveni has appointed former Chief Justice of Uganda, Bart Magunda Katureebe as new Chancellor of Uganda Management Institute UMI replacing former education minister, Namirembe Bitamazire.
In an appointment letter dated June 6, 2021, seen by this website, Katureebe will head the UMI for a period of four years.
“In exercise of the powers conferred upon me by section 30(1) of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 2001, as amended, I Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni, do hereby appoint Justice Bart Magunda Katureebe chancellor of UMI,” Museveni stated in the letter.
UMI is a government-owned national center for training, research, and consultancy in the field of management and administration in Uganda.
It is one of the country’s public universities and degree-awarding institutions in the country outside the military.
About Bart
Justice Katureebe in 2020 retired on reaching 70, the mandatory age for judges to quit in Uganda.
The former Chief Justice had a wide-ranging career before becoming a member of Uganda’s Supreme Court, and his legacy includes introducing an electronic case management system for the country.
He served in the government’s executive arm as a minister and deputy minister, holding a variety of portfolios including that of the Minister of Justice.
In private practice, he helped head up one of the most prominent law firms in Kampala and served on the boards of a number of major companies.
Then he went back to the government, this time as a member of the judicial branch, first as a judge of the Supreme Court and then as Chief Justice.
His appointment as Chief Justice ended a two-year hiatus during which Uganda had no official judicial leader.
Among the many international bodies with which he was associated, he was a founding member of the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts. In the tribute paid to him by that organization, SIFoCC said he had always championed collaboration between judiciaries, the importance of training and case management, and the sharing of best practices between courts.
Despite his strong commitment to electronic case management as a way of dealing with the serious backlog of cases in the Ugandan courts, there has not yet been the kind of significant results that he would have wished as part of his legacy.
