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and International Courts

African Women

Click below to read our background paper:

African Women Judges on International Courts: Symbolic or Substantive Gains?

Januária Tavares Silva Moreira Costa

ECOWAS Court of Justice

CAPE VERDE

Honorable Justice Januària Costa is a Cape Verdean lawyer with a law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lisbon. She is currently a judge on the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Justice Costa was registered as a lawyer under the Portuguese Bar Association and started a Legal Practice there in 1991.

In 1993, she served as manager of the Judicial Component of the ‘Public Sector Reform and Capacity Building’ project financed by the World Bank. In 1995, she served as a correspondent for the Permanent Secretariat of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Lusophone Countries and was on the Organizing Committee of the IV Conference of Ministers of Justice of Lusophone Countries. In 1996, she served as Advisor to the Minister of Justice and was elected as a Judge of Law in the Cape Verdean District of São Filipe. She was transferred as Judge of Law to the Civil Court of the District of Santa Catarina in 1998, and in 1999 she was selected as Judge of Law in the Auxiliary Civil Court of Praia. She served as President of the Council of Social Communication in 1999 and was Minister of Justice from 1999 to 2001.

In 2005 she served as a Judge of Law at the 4th Civil Court of Comarca da Praia. She served as a professor at the Jean Piaget University of Cape Verde between 2009 and 2011 and was a Member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary from 2009 to 2012. Justice Costa has completed Complementary Training in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Fundamental Rights, and attended a Judges Training Course at the Judicial Studies Center, Lisbon in 1995. In 2006, Justice Costa participated in the 1st Course on Environmental Law for Lusophone Countries, a course organized by the Institute “O Direito Por o Planeta Verde” and the United Nations Environment Program in São Paulo, Brazil.

Hansine N. Donli

ECOWAS Court of Justice

NIGERIA

Justice Hansine Donli was a judge of the ECOWAS Court of Justice from 2001 to 2009, and President of the Court from 2001 to 2007. Ms. Donli was also the Court’s first member and first President and served as Dean of the Court from 2009. While serving at the ECOWAS Court, she was on the panel of judges that delivered several groundbreaking judgments. These included the SERAP vs. Nigeria case, which held the Nigerian government accountable for the environmental damage oil companies caused in its country.
Prior to serving as President of the Court, Ms. Donli was a High Court judge and served as Kaduna State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice. She has attended international conferences in Seoul, Berlin, and Barcelona, and was an active participant in the International Conference on the Law of Evidence in Vancouver, Canada.

Monica Kalyegira Mugenyi

East African Court of Justice (EACJ)

UGANDA

Justice Monica Mugenyi is a Ugandan lawyer and judge of the Ugandan Court of Appeal/Constitutional Court. Justice Mugenyi received her Bachelor of Laws from Makerere University, Uganda, and a Master of Laws in International Trade Law from the University of Essex. She also holds a Diploma in Legal Practice, which she obtained from the Law Development Centre in Uganda. Prior to her work on the bench, Justice Mugenyi worked in the Office of the Attorney General and the Privatization Unit. From 1993 to 1999, she was a State Attorney in the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Chambers. She then worked as Senior State Attorney before becoming a Legal Officer of the Privatisation & Utility Sector Reform Project from the World Bank and the International Development Association (IDA).

Justice Mugenyi has served as a Private Legal Consultant and was working as Manager of Corporate Services for the Uganda Road Fund when she was appointed to the High Court of Uganda. She was elected to the Land and Criminal Division of the High Court in September 2010 and was then appointed a judge of the First Instance Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) three years later. The appointment took place during the East African Community Heads of State Summit in December 2013.
In July 2015, she began serving as the ‘Principal Judge’ of the Court and Administrative Head of the First Instance Division, making her the first woman to take on the role. Justice Mugenyi was later sworn in as Judge of the Court of Appeal by President Yoweri K. Museveni on December 10th, 2019, and ended her term with the EACJ a year later. Justice Mugenyi is a member of the Gayaza Old Girls Association and serves as the Chairperson of the East African Development Bank (EADB) Staff Appeals Tribunal. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb), UK.

Sauda Mjasiri

East African Court of Justice (EACJ)

TANZANIA

Justice Sauda Mjasiri is a Tanzanian judge who was appointed to the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) on February 1st, 2019, during the 20th Ordinary Heads of State Summit of the East African Community (EAC). Justice Mjasiri worked in the trial and appellate litigation at the Tanzania Legal Corporation for twenty years before working at the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank between 1998 and 2004. While at the Legal Corporation, she offered voluntary legal services to women, and while at the Bank, she served as executive assistant to the President, as well as a senior legal officer.
Mjasiri also established and directed a compliance unit. Justice Mjasiri was elected to the High Court of Tanzania in 2004, where she served in both the main registry as well as the commercial division for four years before being appointed as judge of the Tanzanian Court of Appeal in February 2008. She took her oath for the East African Court on the same day she was appointed and was assigned to the Appellate Division.

Stella Arach - Amoko

East African Court of Justice (EACJ)

UGANDA

Stella Arach-Amoko is a Ugandan judge of the Supreme Court. Justice Arach-Amoko obtained her Bachelor of Law degree from Makerere University, Uganda, and received a Diploma in Legal Practice from Kampala’s Law Development Centre. In 1979, she began serving in the Attorney General’s chambers. She served as State Attorney and eventually rose to the position of Commissioner for Civil Litigation. In 1997, she was appointed to the High Court of Uganda, where she worked until 2010 when she was appointed as a judge of the Court of Appeal.

While at the High Court, Justice Arach-Amoko headed the Civil and Commercial Divisions and gained a reputation for being a no-nonsense judge. Additionally, she served in the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) from 2006 to 2013, initially as a judge, but later as Deputy Principal Judge of the First Instance Division. She was even nominated for appointment as Chief Justice by Uganda’s Judicial Service Commission.

Justice Arach-Amoko served as Chairperson of the Uganda Law Development Centre Management Committee from April 2018 to April 2020 and has been serving in the Supreme Court since June 2013. She has handled several election petitions, and, while at the Court of Appeal, she wrote the lead judgment that nullified the victory of an MP’s win in Uganda’s Butambala County in 2012.

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