The images are granular, and the sound quality stifled, and yet the UN and the Ugandan the judge of Lydia Mugambe is audible, while her eyes widen. A British police officer told him Cam body Images give us the sight of the scene – “Unfortunately, I will now have to stop” under the United Kingdom Act 2015 of modern slavery.
The arrest took place at the home of Mugambe, in a village just 20 minutes by car from the place where she continued her doctorate – By emphasizing human rights – at the Pembroke College Oxford. In February 2023, police had received information indicating that a woman was detained as a slave at this address. During a trial at Oxford Crown runs in February and March 2025, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) detailed how Mugambe had worked alongside Uganda then deputy in the United Kingdom, John Leonard Minerwa, and how the two had organized to bring a young woman from Uganda to the United Kingdom on a visa that said that the two MUGERWA. Instead, Mugambe picked up the woman at the airport and led her to her home, confiscated her passport and her phone and forced her to do domestic work.
“She said she would burn my passport”
When the woman contacted a friend who contacted the British police, evidence then showed that Mugambe had tried to persuade the woman not to testify. The victim – who, under the Modern Slavery Act of the United Kingdom, obtained anonymity for life – told court: “My existence in Lydia was not important … Even after the police visited her house at the first time, Lydia told me that she had the authority and that she would burn my passport and my bank card.
A jury recognized Mugambe guilty of Four charges: Conspirator to break British immigration law, forcing a person to do forced or compulsory work, to conspire to intimidate a witness and to facilitate the trips of another person with a view to exploitation. The 2 May 2025J. Sir David Foxton inflicted on Mugambe a prison sentence of six years and four months, in what he said to be “Very sad case». The first three years of the sentence must be purged in prison, with the second half “on permit, in the community”. She also received a lifetime restraint against the victim and ordered to pay £ 12,160 (€ 14,440).
A more political affair than it seems
The extraordinary case, which seemed to take place quite quietly at the start, finally ended this month with expressions of shock and indignation from various observers, practitioners and researchers in international criminal law. But the events themselves reveal questions and problems of power, privileges and much deeper politics.
In the rush to note the irony of an international judge and a doctoral student in international law and human rights convicted of such serious crimes, there is another aspect of the case of Mugambe which was slightly obscured: the political.
The first is the question of his co-conspirator, John Leonard Mugerwa. Mugerwa knew, according to the prosecutors, that the victim “would work in servitude for Mugambe”. According to the media, Mugerwa and Mugambe concluded an agreement by which he would support the request for the fraudulent visa of the victim in exchange for Mugambe trying to influence a judge in Uganda, where Mugerwa faced a legal action. Judge Foxton noted that the Ugandan judge in question, “on his credit”, had refused to take calls from Mugambe.
According to his LiendinMugerwa returned to Kampala, Uganda, in September 2024, where he is currently used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The accusation had authorized an accusation against Mugerwa similar to that of Mugambe, but could not proceed because of his diplomatic immunity, which (unlike the UN’s response to the charges of Mugambe), the Ugandan government did not give up.
It is possible that Mugambe herself does not stay in a prison in the United Kingdom, even up to half of her sentence. Uganda Monitor reported as soon as October 2024 that the Ugandan government had “the intention of saving the judge at trial in the United Kingdom”. In April 2025 Uganda has signed agreements with several governments – including the United Kingdom – which allows Ugandans serving prison sentences abroad to purge the rest of their “at home” sorrows. The demonstrators outside the Oxford Crown runs in May held signs defending Mugambe and describing the case as one of the cultural differences and political exploitation. A panel asked the question “who exploits who in this case?”.
Although it is not clear (for me) of what the innuendo of this slogan was, it speaks of a perceived feeling of political maneuver which apparently felt both those who defend Mugambe, and those of the office of the accusation trying to unpack his plot with Mugerwa. The images of March 2025 Bodycam in which Mugambe affirmed with indignation diplomatic immunity – “I am a judge in my country. I even have immunity ” – failed the privileged rights at the time. Although these words are not strictly speaking, true, there is no doubt that the case is more political and politicized than it seems.
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Power and law (international)
Mugambe worked internationally Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) In the early 2000s and early 2010s, first in the “Legal Support” chambers, then at the prosecutor’s office. In 2013, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni appointed him before the Uganda High Court. She served there until 2020, when she started working towards a doctorate in law, at the University of Oxford. In addition to her doctorate, she was appointed judge to the successor of the ICTR, the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Trials (Unmct).
Her profile On the IMCT website – deleted only recently, listed its initial appointment on May 26, 2023, and its “current mandate” as extending from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026. It was listed as having been involved in “a certain number of questions” as a single judge. A disappearance of the documentation available on the digital data database reveals only one mention of Mugambe. In November 2023, the president of the mechanism, judge Graciela Gatti Santana, denied the request of Stanislav Galić of early release. Galić – Former Commander of the Bosnian Serbian Army – was sentenced of Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Train Yugoslavia (Icty) for His Role in the Campaign of Sniping and Shelling Attacks on the Civilian Population of Sarajevo, Between 1992 and 1994. In 2006, an Appeals Chamber Altered Galić’s 20-Year Sentence life imprisonment. In September 2023, Galić asked for early release (he also did in 2021, and again in 2024). Justice Gatti Santana noted, in her decision to refuse her release, that she had consulted judge Alphons Orie, who had been a judge on the bench who sentenced Galić. “Like no other judge who imposed the condemnation on Galić is judges of the mechanism”, she also consulted a “Lydia Mugambe judge”, who agreed with Orie that Galić was not eligible for her early release.
Opaque declaration of the United Nations mechanism
As a person who observes many international criminal trials – through the archives, video connection or in person – I am always impatient to remind people that judges are human, and not the automata always deleted, objectives and rational, an audience of the trial often insists. Usually, when I take stock of the “imperfect” judges, I refer to cases where they get angry, emotional or even occasionally fall asleep during a boring trial audience.
However, when a judge of the service mechanism was found guilty of “modern slavery”, I expected a fairly rapid, serious and public reaction of an institution imbued with the language of justice for the victims of serious crimes. Of the three counts, my expectations were disappointed. First of all, Mugambe’s profile remained on the mechanism’s website up to 3 days after his conviction – two months after his conviction. Second, the deletion of the profile has coincided with a opaque declarationNoting that the mechanism had renounced the immunity that Mugambe would have been entitled as a UN judge, but saying very little. Third, the declaration vaguely noted that since the mechanism had become aware (in July 2024) of the survey on Mugambe, it had “taken all appropriate administrative measures”, in particular “the judgment of the participation of the Mugambe judge” in the mechanism. The mention was only made of “certain accusations” against it: nothing of the nature of the crimes for which it was condemned.
As a person who had followed the case of Mugambe for months at this stage, I found this reaction frustrating. But that also raises some important questions. What duty does an institution like IRCT have when he does not deal with crimes committed by individuals he pursues, stops and tries, but by his own staff? The suspension of Mugambe’s participation is only a step, surely, to “protect the integrity” of the institution. The declaration ends with a note that an additional comment is impossible due to “the confidential nature of internal procedures”. But this confidentiality, combined with the slow response, gave observers An impression of inaction at best, and at worst apathy, in response to the crimes of Mugambe.
“Integrity” will surely be going beyond the procedure? While the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan faces a new allegation attack according to which he avoids his own calculations “Hide behind the atrocities“, Other mechanisms of justice must surely count with the more political and public aspects of” integrity “of their work. In the case of Mugambe, a better balance between confidentiality, condemnation and clarity seems to be in order. Two days after the first declaration, a second Followed, when Mugambe officially “resigned” as a UN judge. Although almost identical, he contained a paragraph that is seen as follows: “The office and the condemnation of a United Nations judge for modern slavery crimes, immigration violations and the intimidation of witnesses are extremely serious questions. The mechanism is committed and remains determined to facilitate the appropriate, fair and effective administration of justice. ”
How should the international justice mechanisms take place when the cries of injustice come from inside the house? Unfortunately, this is an overly topical question. The story of judge Mugambe can (hopefully) show other institutions that the answer is not to plead confidentiality and to be silent. Procedural and public “integrity” must form an act of balancing.
Lucy J. Gaynor is a doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam and at the Niod Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, examining the construction of historical accounts in international criminal trials.