Staff In The School Of Law To Undertake Research In Disability Law
The Disability Rights Program in the School of Law under the “Promoting Disability Rights through Legal Education” program has commissioned three studies that will result into working papers in the area of disability Law.
The studies that were validated in a meeting held at the School of Law recently will be undertaken by staff in the School of Law.
Dr. Zahara Nampewo, the Ag. Director Human Rights and Peace Centre presented her concept entitled, “Who is impregnating Kampala’s Women? Right to Marriage and Parenthood for Women with Disabilities on Kampala Streets”.
Dr. KakunguluMayambala, a senior Lecturer will focus his works on “Deepening Access to Published Works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled in Uganda”.
Ms. Ahumuza Dianah, Assistant Lecturer will make a “Review of the Efficacy of Disability Policies at the Work Places, A case study of Commercial Banks in Kampala”.
Professor Ben Twinomugisha from the Department of Public and Comparative Law will address Disability Rights in Maternal Health in Uganda.
The Research is one of the outputs of the program; Promoting Disability Rights through Legal Education, which is running in the School of Law, under the coordination of the Public Interest Law Clinic, PILAC and supported by Open Society. It’s aimed at promoting the teaching and Learning in the area of Disability Rights Law in the School of Law Makerere University.
This comes up following the realization that although the School of Law, Makerere University is the oldest Law School in Uganda, it had until the commencement of the Project not taken any steps to incorporate disability law and rights into its curriculum. Generally, the School has for a long time put much emphasis on modules that prepare candidates for commercial legal practice.
It is against this background that the Project was conceived as a tool through which curriculum reforms that will result into the teaching of disability rights and law at the School of Law, Makerere University could be influenced. It was hoped that this would result into changes that will see a legal profession and eventually a judicial system that is schooled and skilled to address the legal and human rights challenges Persons with Disabilities face. The outcome of Project was the adoption by the School of a Curriculum on Disability Law and Rights as part of the revised School of Law Curriculum. The Curriculum has adopted a dual approach which introduces a specialized Disability Rights Module, as one strand, and infuses disability law and rights issues in existing traditional modules, as the other strand.
Through this intervention, Academic staff in the School of Law will be supported to develop papers on disability law and rights and to undertake research on disability law and rights issues. The target for this activity are subject teachers at the School of law interested in conducting research on disability related issues in their respective modules.
The outcome will be academic papers that address disability law and rights issues and one that can be used both for academic research and teaching. It is intended that the papers will be of publishable quality, with chances of having them as papers of a special issue of the East African Journal on Peace & Human Rights on Disability Law and Rights.
The areas the research covers/include are but not limited to Disability rights and judicial processes, Disability rights in health and the law, Corporate/Business Law and disability, Human rights aspects of disability in Uganda, Employment, labour and disability, Persons with disabilities in the criminal justice system as well as Family law (marriage, succession) the rights of persons with disabilities.
