WHO IS MUZINGU FRANCIS SSEKANDI AN OLD BOY OF St. MARY’S COLLEGE, KISUBI?

 WHO IS FRANCIS MUZINGU SSEKANDI AN OLD BOY OF St. MARY’S COLLEGE, KISUBI (SMACK)?

Francis Muzingu Ssekandi is an Old Boy of St. Mary’s College, Kisubi. He was born on 29th September 1940. Attended at SMACK: 1960 - 1962 for Higher School Certificate.

He was in Mugwanya House and for one year its Prefect. Mugwanya House won many trophies including in football. My main interest apart from cheering Mugwanya House in Football, was field Hockey in which I excelled as centre forward of the Kisubi Hockey team. We won many matches during my time. Recently a colleague on the team (John Nazareth) sent to me the photograph below.

I went to Law School after SMACK to the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, where I obtained a Batchelor of Laws in 1965 and later did a Masters degree in Law at Columbia University in New York graduating in 1966. I have had the honour to go back and teach at the Columbia University Law School, after my retirement from active service, from 2001 to 2019.

My Legal Career:

After leaving Columbia University in 1966, I joined the Ministry of Justice in Uganda as a State Attorney. I was honored to have been selected in 1968 to be one of the founding teachers, part-time, at the Makerere Faculty of Law. A picture of our class is attached.

In 1972 I was transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the Law Development Centre as its Director. My main task was to implement the Law setting up the Post Graduate Bar Course for graduating lawyers before they go into the practice of Law. I set up the course in 1973 after visiting and evaluating similar course in London (Barristers), Birmingham (Solicitors), Nigeria, Australia, Canada (Osgood Hall) and the USA and this course is still up and running. 

In 1974 I was appointed a Judge of the High Court and in 1978 I was promoted to the Uganda Court of Appeal, as a Justice of Appeal, which replaced the East African Court of Appeal that had collapsed with the dissolution of the East African Community.

This Court has since been transformed into the current Supreme Court of Uganda.

I left Uganda in 1979 and retired officially from the Judicial Service in 1980. After a year teaching as Visiting Professor of Law at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan, I joined the United Nations in 1981 where I served in the Office of Legal Affairs until 1997. I was then the Deputy Director of the General Legal Division. I also served briefly as Director of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Liberia, at the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia in 1996-7. After taking early retirement from the United Nations, I joined the African Development Bank, in Côte d’Ivoire, as the General Counsel, and Director of the Legal Department. I finally retired from the International Civil Service in 2000 on reaching the retirement age of 60 years.

For the past 22 years I have worked as an International Legal Consultant performing a variety of functions, advising Governments, including in East Timor and Rwanda, the United Nations and its Agencies and other International Organizations, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the International Solar Alliance, IRENA and ICSID where I am a Member of the Panel of Arbitrators. 

In 2007 I was appointed to be a Judge at the World Bank Administrative Tribunal where I served for 6 years. As mentioned earlier, during all this time as an International Legal Consultant, I worked as Lecturer-in Law at the Columbia Law School as well. My main achievements in my varied and long career include among others, presiding over an investigation of the riots in Kosovo that had resulted in the death of UN peacekeepers, Assisting East Timor upon attaining its Independence to negotiate Technical Cooperation and Establishment Agreements with Donor countries, such as Japan, Australia and Germany, and helping in drafting their Commercial procurement and contracting laws and assisting the Government of Rwanda in its efforts to reform their Judicial System. These are just a few of the many assignments.

I have been honoured to be able to participate in peacekeeping operations of the United Nations and to promote international development around the world, through my work at the UN and ADB which included assisting in negotiations leading to the establishment of UNOPS, UNAIDS and UNWOMEN organizations, and the Administrative Tribunal at the African Development Bank.