Who is Deputy CJ Kavuma?

Mar 05, 2015

President Yoweri Museveni today nominated Justice Bart Magunda Katureebe as the Chief Justice of Uganda and Stephen Kavuma as theDeputy Chief Justice.

By Vision Reporter

President Yoweri Museveni today nominated Justice Bart Magunda Katureebe as the Chief Justice of Uganda and Stephen Kavuma as the Deputy Chief Justice.

Born on September 29, 1948, Kavuma started his legal career in 1975 as a State Attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers (Solicitor General’s Department), from where he was seconded to head the legal department of the National Insurance Corporation, rising to the position of corporation secretary. In 1981, he went into private practice under Kavuma & Company Advocates, which firm later became Kavuma, Katureebe & Company Advocates.

He served as Mpigi district chairperson, member of Parliament and member of the Constituent Assembly, before he quit elective politics and joined the Judiciary as justice of the Court of Appeal.

When the deputy chief justice, Constance Byamugisha Kategaya died in 2013, Kavuma became the acting deputy chief justice. And when Odoki retired later in the same year, Kavuma became both acting chief justice and acting deputy chief justice. But he continued sitting on the Court of Appeal bench, although the chief justice sits on the Supreme Court bench

Kavuma is well remembered as a state minister for defence. 

He has been the acting Chief Justice since April 2013 when Justice Benjamin Odoki left office.

Prior to this, Kavuma was the acting Deputy Chief Justice, a position he acquired after the then substantive Deputy Chief Justice Constance Byamugisha passed on.

Kavuma has handled several cases including the one of the NRM expelled MPs. In April 2009, Justice Kavuma suspended the Court Martial cases against the late former army commander James Kazini, pending the disposal of his petition challenging the constitutionality of his trial by the army court.

Kazini was being accused of disobeying orders of the Commander-in-Chief on deployment of troops.

He is most remembered for bringing to a halt Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago’s celebrations after the High Court cancelled his removal from office. Justice Kavuma did freeze the High Court orders the very day Lukwago returned to work, and did so exparte.

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Appointment of Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice 2 March 2015_____ by The New Vision

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