By By Dennis Katungi
I have seen many comments both in print and online regarding Justice Mugambe’s predicament with UK authorities. A respected judge of the High Court in Uganda, also retained by the UN as a Criminal Tribunal judge, Justice Lydia Mugambe was pursuing a PhD in Law at the prestigious University of Oxford.
How did she end up with a Crown Court conviction on four counts on 13th March 2025? She was found guilty of i) conspiring to do an act to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law by a non-UK national, ii) requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour, iii) conspiracy to intimidate a witness and iv) arranging the travel of another person with a view to exploitation.
Let me state the well-known legal verbiage that ‘ignorance of the law is no defense! If the lady justice was unaware of how British labour laws work, it would still not have saved her neck. Prosecutors averred that, being a lawyer, she knew but set out to enslave another human being and, in the process, broke other laws.
In the United Kingdom, it is next to impossible to hire or obtain a maid or houseboy to take care of day-to-day chores at home, including babysitting, cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry. You have to be earning a six-figure sum in pound sterling to afford the luxury. The law states that every person in work should be paid a minimum wage, which the UK government set at £11.45 per hour for every person aged 18 and above. The lady justice brought the maid from Uganda through a friend at the Uganda High Commission. But the lady justice was, in actual fact, a postgraduate student at Oxford University, living in the leafy suburb of Kidlington, with no diplomatic immunity.
Secondly, the maid was being paid £120 per month, roughly 500,000 UG shillings. She had no NI (National Insurance Number), which is given to everyone living and working in the UK—be it a citizen or foreign national. Everyone earning an income should be paying tax. Instead, the maid was paid cash in hand, which is against the law. Most employees in the UK work for 8 hours a day, earning roughly £450 per week and £1,800 per month, equivalent to 8.6 million UGX. Remember, this maid was working more than 12 hours a day and was always available.
A protracted and complex investigation involving a number of people then ensued, during which Thames Valley Police established that Justice Mugambe had obtained a visa for the victim to work in the UK.
However, the terms of this visa were that the victim would be paid to work for a diplomat at the Uganda High Commission. Justice Mugambe paid for the victim’s plane ticket to the UK, picked her up from the airport, and thereafter, the victim became “Mugambe’s slave, carrying out unpaid work as a domestic servant and nanny,” the prosecutor averred.
It was the prosecution’s case that Justice Mugambe sponsored the victim’s entry into the UK as a domestic worker in her personal household but under the auspices of the Ugandan High Commission. The prosecution argued that communications between Mugambe and the diplomat demonstrated that they colluded to facilitate the victim’s visa, knowing she would actually work in servitude for the judge.
Thames Valley Police investigated the diplomat’s involvement in this case, but he had diplomatic immunity, which the Ugandan government did not waive, meaning he could not be charged with any offences. It is understood that this diplomat was recalled to Kampala well before the judge’s conviction.
Commander for Oxfordshire, Chief Superintendent Ben Clark, said: “Lydia Mugambe is an extremely qualified lawyer, a Ugandan High Court judge, and a UN Criminal Tribunal judge. As such, there is no doubt that she knew she was committing offences by bringing the victim to the UK under the pretence that she was going to work for a diplomat at Uganda’s embassy in London. This provided her with a legal route of entry, but she knew all along that she intended to make the victim work in servitude.”
“Mugambe used her position of power as well as her knowledge of the law to take advantage of the victim, ensuring that she would become her unpaid domestic servant,” prosecutors alleged in court and won the day.
How it all unfolded
This particular maid used to take the judge’s kids to the local park for picnics. This is an expansive open playground, and it was at this park that our maid from Uganda met many other parents out with their kids. They assumed that the kids were hers and engaged her in conversations. Quickly, they discovered that she was only a maid taking care of the kids. They asked her how much she earned, and she told them. At first, they thought it was £120 per day, but as the conversation progressed, they discovered the reality. They advised her to demand the minimum wage from her employer. She told investigators later that she tried it with no success. At this point, the park friends advised her to report the matter to the police, and from that moment, it became a criminal investigation. The maid was rehoused and given a lawyer to defend her employment rights, and from this point, it was her word against the lady justice’s. Clearly, the law of this land always favours the underdog, and there was substantial evidence to prosecute, leading to a conviction.
The writer is a senior journalist, formerly with Reuters Information Service in London. @Dennis_Katungi
