The High Court sitting in Kabale has ordered the management committee of Bishop Asili Nursery Day and Boarding Primary School in Kabale Municipality to pay Shs 25 million in general damages to Tadeo Ruzindantaro over the disappearance of his daughter.
The ruling follows events dating back to April 23, 2018, when Ruzindantaro accused the school of unlawfully releasing his daughter (name withheld on court orders) to his estranged wife, Mercy Kirande, without his consent. In Civil Suit No. 36 of 2022, Ruzindantaro claimed that the school’s head teacher, Sister Margaret Tusiime, collaborated with Kirande to remove the child—then four years old—from Uganda and smuggle her to South Africa.
According to Ruzindantaro, he and Kirande were married in 2003 but separated in 2010. He told the court that after their separation, Kirande left the country and abandoned the child. Years later, when Ruzindantaro’s current wife, Innocent Tukamushaba, went to the school to collect the child’s report card as her guardian, a teacher revealed that the pupil had sat only two papers before being taken to South Africa by Kirande—with the help of the head teacher.
However, it later emerged during court proceedings that the child had in fact been picked up from the school by Kirande’s close friend, Phionah Rukundo, and remained in Kampala—not South Africa, as initially claimed.
In his ruling on Wednesday, Justice Karoli Lwanga Ssemogerere stated that the school management had violated Article 31(4) of the Constitution, which stipulates that it is the right and duty of parents to care for and raise their children. He further noted that the school had abused the trust placed in it, emphasizing that both law and culture abhor the act of abduction.
“Abduction is a serious matter,” the judge ruled, adding that schools are not in loco parentis and must never unlawfully release children to unauthorized individuals.
Justice Ssemogerere awarded Shs 25 million in general damages to Ruzindantaro for the psychological distress he suffered and ordered the school to cover half of the legal costs incurred by Ruzindantaro during the suit.