{"id":4041,"date":"2020-03-24T15:01:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T19:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/?page_id=77894"},"modified":"2025-05-12T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:18:27","slug":"clinic-students-win-right-to-divorce-for-women-in-ugandas-constitutional-court","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/clinics\/our-clinics\/international-womens-human-rights-clinic\/press-and-publications\/clinic-students-win-right-to-divorce-for-women-in-ugandas-constitutional-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinic Students win right to divorce for women in Uganda\u2019s Constitutional Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In March 2004, as IWHR Clinic students and faculty sat in the courtroom, the justices of the Constitutional Court of Uganda read their decisions from the bench. The next day\u2019s Kampala Monitor newspaper sensationalized the holding\u2014\u201cWives can divorce cheating husbands,\u201d ran the banner headline\u2014but what the court had done was spectacular: for the first time, the Constitutional Court of Uganda had used the gender equity provisions in the Ugandan Constitution to invalidate a discriminatory law.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4039\" src=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/The-Monitor-Headline.png\" alt=\"The Monitor\u2019s headline: Wives can divorce cheating husbands\" width=\"604\" height=\"269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2019\/10\/The-Monitor-Headline.png 604w, https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2019\/10\/The-Monitor-Headline-300x134.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With this decision, the court extended to wives the right to divorce based on their husbands\u2019 adultery that the old law gave only to him\u2014a right of great importance in the era of rampant HIV\/AIDS. The attorneys of Law and Advocacy for Women-Uganda had won an amazing victory. But it was a victory for Georgetown\u2019s International Women\u2019s Human Rights Clinic as well. The case had begun as a joint project between IWHR Clinic and LAW-U, and Clinic students initially drafted the Constitutional Court petition and brief, working in tandem with the lawyers who later filed the case in Uganda.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_58332\" style=\"width: 553px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-58332\" class=\"wp-image-4040 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/LAW-Uganda.png\" alt=\"&quot; &quot;\" width=\"543\" height=\"357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2019\/10\/LAW-Uganda.png 543w, https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2019\/10\/LAW-Uganda-300x197.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-58332\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LAW-Uganda lawyers prepare to hear the Constitutional Court\u2019s historic decision granting women equal rights with men.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>*<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Uganda-Assn-of-Women-Lawyers-v-Attorney-General-Constitutional-Petition-2-of-2003.pdf\"><em>Uganda Association of Women Lawyers and Ors v Attorney General<\/em> (Constitutional Petition 2 of 2003) [2004] UGCC 1 (10 March 2004)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In March 2004, as IWHR Clinic students and faculty sat in the courtroom, the justices of the Constitutional Court of Uganda read their decisions from the bench. The next day\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4097,"featured_media":0,"parent":3965,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-4041","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4041\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}