Legal and Psychosocial Department

The overall aim of the department is to ensure that the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, deportees and other forced migrants in Uganda, as specified under national and international law, are respected and implemented. We also offer psychosocial assistance in the areas of counselling, as well as clinical and mental health. We campaign to ensure that forced migrants are treated in a just, fair and humane manner befitting of all human beings. The department is divided into the legal aid clinic and the psychosocial unit and operates through a variety of thematic programmes.

Legal Aid Clinic

Objectives

To achieve its aim, the clinic's specific objectives are to:

1. Provide free legal assistance to the refugee population in Uganda
2. Push for reform of existing law, policy and practice relating to refugees
3. Work to enhance domestic refugee legislation
4. Improve information flows to refugees and asylum seekers
5. Promote knowledge of refugee law among legal professionals

The RLP Legal Aid Clinic [RLP-LAC] has provided free legal services to refugees and asylum seekers since its inception in 1999. To date, we have represented over one thousand refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda. We are the only legal aid clinic in Uganda concentrating efforts specifically on the refugee community.

a) Refugee status determination

Status determination in Uganda can be a long and troublesome process, which many refugees find traumatic. Lack of standard official procedures and misunderstandings relating to international obligations can lead to delays, unwarranted rejection of refugee status and general confusion among asylum seekers. We offer professional advice to asylum seekers engaging in this process, prepare cases for appeal before the Refugee Eligibility Committee [REC], and have recently applied for Judicial Review of a REC decision in the High Court of Uganda.

b) Physical security and social needs interventions

Refugees' problems in Uganda do not necessarily begin or end with the status determination procedure. Refugees are also faced with additional problems such as inadequate health provision, lack of housing, critical food shortage, unclear policies relating to their right to work, detention as a result of lack of proper documentation, and a frequent perceived lack of personal security and safety. Some of these concerns raise serious questions relating to those actors within Uganda who are supposed to have offered some form of protection in one of these areas, and who have not done so. Timely interventions from a well-informed group such as the Refugee Law Project can often lead to a reconsideration of the applicant's case and a more favorable outcome for the individual concerned.

c) Field visits and community outreach

There is an incredible demand for our services outside Kampala. The majority of refugees live in remote rural refugee settlements in Uganda where their freedom of movement is restricted. We often receive reports of human rights abuses in refugee settlements that we respond to whenever we can. There are many refugee settlements spread throughout the country and we cannot pretend to be able to effectively service them alone with only one office in Kampala. Our plan is to have more of a presence in the settlements through the following:

• Recruitment of more legal officers to boost clinic staff so that we are better able to respond to situations arising in refugee settlements.
• More regular visits to refugee settlements.
• With the Education & Training Department, training of refugee community leaders in settlements so that they are better able to assert their own rights and freedoms
• Continued networking with other legal aid service providers, for example through the Legal Aid Service Providers network [LASPNET] in order to have a more established presence in refugee hosting districts outside Kampala

Every field visit is followed by the preparation of a field report that presents a detailed account of the situations encountered by field team while in that particular refugee settlement. VIEW and DOWNLOAD some of the LPD field reports.

2. Push for reform of existing law, policy and practice relating to refugees

The RLP-LAC continues to push for reform of existing laws, polices and practices that adversely affect refugees. Individual case interventions ensure that refugee rights are respected and hold actors accountable within the refugee regime. In addition, we are exploring avenues for building jurisprudence in refugee law within the country and the African region.

The RLP-LAC also continues to engage with key actors in order to reform refugee policy. With the passing of the new Refugee Act, the LAC will work to ensure its implementation including representing asylum seekers in their refugee status applications to the Government.

3. Work to enhance domestic refugee legislation

A new Refugee Act was recently passed by the parliament in 2006. While the act goes a long way in incorporating international refugee law standards, its implementation remains another issue altogether, and it is the LAC's duty to ensure that that measures are taken by all actors to implement the Act.

4. Improve information flows to refugees and asylum seekers

Legal officers always provide information to their clients in the Legal Aid Clinic. However additionally, the LAC organises information sessions for refugees in Kampala in which a wide range of issues are discussed, including the rights and obligations of refugees in Uganda.

5. Promote knowledge of refugee law among legal professionals

Refugee Law is not part of the undergraduate curriculum and thus the vast majority of Ugandan Lawyers, Judges and Magistrates have minimal knowledge in this area - if any. In order to promote knowledge of refugee law among the Ugandan legal fraternity, the RLP-LAC offers legal internships to university law students, and clerkships for students of Uganda's Law Development Centre (LDC). Together with the Education and Training Department, the clinic is working to introduce a short course on refugee law for legal practitioners in the country.

Our response to needs is in many cases restricted due to lack of funds, shortage of staff, and the fact that government permission is necessary to enter the refugee settlements.

Psychosocial Counselling

The Psychosocial Counselling unit aims at assisting refugees and asylum seekers to become mentally prepared and empowered to face the challenges of displacement. It is a complementary unit of the Legal Aid Clinic. Activities include psychosocial counselling, mental health assessment, performing needs and psychological assessments and offering support to refugee community groups.

Focus of work

• Counselling: Individual and group counseling as well as guidance to refugees and asylum seekers.
• Psychological testing: Psychological testing to help in diagnosis, understanding the presenting problem, and to help in designing the intervention, as well as individual and group psychotherapy through the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to help refugees adjust mentally and behaviorally with respect to their traumatic experiences in addition to other mental health disorders.
• Social service provision: Conducting home visits to help assess refugees' needs and network with partner organisations to ensure that refugees receive the basics they need, which include temporary accommodation, food and access to health facilities.
• Education and training in mental health: Educating target groups on mental health disorders, coping mechanisms, the importance of support from the family to the larger community and steps to be taken to acquire professional assistance. We also train them in basic counseling skills, family life education and adolescent reproductive health.

Achievements or impact of work

• Improvement in coping attitudes: refugees are more positive towards life and hold more realistic expectations of service providers.
• Improving mental health: the access to counseling professionals has led to improved mental health amongst refugees.
• Established functional referral system: a network of various professionals and institutions to whom we make referrals.
• Establishment and provision of technical support to refugee community groups to enhance communication and provide information on livelihood opportunities.

Long-term goals

While resources may be limited, the counselling section hopes to expand into a full department in its own right to provide dedicated and effective mental health care for refugees and asylum seekers. Other targets include:

• Establishment of self-reliant community-based structures for psychosocial service provision for our target groups.
• To carry out research on prevalence of mental health disorders among refugee, asylum seeker and IDP populations.
• Expansion of activities to include internally displaced persons.

Contact us at lpd@refugeelawproject.org.

Get to know the staff.

Programmes

To achieve its aims and objectives, the Legal and Psychosocial Department undertakes the following thematic programmes.

1. Access to Justice
2. Anti -Torture
3. Child Rights and Protection
4. Community Interpretation
5. Counselling and Groups Support
6. Deportation and Human Trafficking
7. Durable Solutions
8. Mental Health
9. Persons With Disabilities [PWDs] and the Elderly
10. Right to Asylum and Refugee Status Determination
11. Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Persecution [SGBV-P]

Contact us at lpd@refugeelawproject.org.

Get to know the staff.