Mugeni Siwale Mulenga

Senior Fellow – Zambia

Mugeni Siwale Mulenga has served as a judge of the Constitutional Court since its establishment in 2016 and is the current Chairperson of the Judiciary Advisory Committee on Training and Continuing Education.

About Mugeni Siwale Mulenga

Mugeni Siwale Mulenga has served as a judge of the Constitutional Court since its establishment in 2016 and is the current Chairperson of the Judiciary Advisory Committee on Training and Continuing Education. Prior to her elevation to the Constitutional Court, she served as a judge of the High Court, where she actively promoted the use of mediation among litigants, which resulted in a number of cases before her court being settled in mediation.

In her fifteen years of practice as a lawyer preceding her appointment to the High Court bench, Judge Mulenga was a proponent of mediation as a first option in resolving disputes. As in-house counsel, she often represented her institutional clients in mediation.

She also played a key part in the establishment of volunteer consumer watch groups, whose tasks include the facilitation of complaint settlements between service providers and consumers.

She has served on various professional and state boards during her tenure at the Ministry of Justice, including: the Advisory Committee on Mediation and Reduction of Case Backlog, Advisory Committee on Gender, and the Research and Development Committee.

She is a member of the Law Association of Zambia, the Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia, the Zambia Association of Women Judges, and the International Association of Women Judges.
She is involved in many activities surrounding gender-based violence and children’s rights and protection.

Litigation Practice

Judge Mulenga’s litigation practice focused on constitutional, civil, and criminal law. She was involved in a broad range of civil litigation, while serving as a state advocate in the Attorney General’s Chambers and as in-house counsel for the National Water Supply and Sanitation council.

She also worked as a prosecutor under the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. In her work in the International Law and Agreements Department of the Ministry of Justice, she participated in negotiating and vetting commercial and international contracts and agreements or treaties.

Mediation Practice

Judge Mulenga informally mediated disputes involving commercial utilities during her employment at the National Water Supply and Sanitation Council.

ADR Achievements and Training

Judge Mulenga has been a member of the Judiciary Advisory Committee on Court-Annexed Mediation and Delay Reduction, which oversees the Mediation Office and its mediators. She also continuously reviews the administration of the Office’s mediation processes. She has been instrumental in drafting the Code of Conduct for mediators, 2018.

  • Weinstein JAMS International Fellow (2017)
  • Trained arbitrator under the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Zambia)
  • Mediation training, JAMS (California)
  • Mediation training, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University School of Law
  • Mediation training, Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Hastings College of the Law

ADR Teaching and Mentoring

  • Judge Mulenga has served as a resource person at several mediation training workshops for judges and lawyers.
  • She has also produced a checklist for referring cases to mediation for the High Court judges.

Publications and Education

Educational Qualifications

  • Masters of Laws (LL.M) in Administrative and Environmental Law, Victoria University of Wellington (2008)
  • Bachelor of Laws (LL.B), the University of Zambia (1994)

For more information

CONTACT US