Uganda: Reflexology facilities must reopen - court

By Juliet Kigongo.

Reflexology practitioners yesterday got a smile on their faces after court directed them to resume their business.

This was after the closure of reflexology centres and banning of their advertisements in the country for more than two years.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire of the Commercial Division of the High Court, while giving his ruling, said when the minister was taking the decision to close the reflexology centres, applicants (reflexology practitioners) were not given the right to be heard.

The ban 

The then minister of Health, Stephen Mallinga, who passed on recently, announced that his ministry had banned reflexology practice in the country until further review.

In a press statement, he called for the closure of all reflexology centres, banned their adverts in both print and broadcast media and called upon Kampala City Council to stop licensing the facilities.

“It was an irrationally procedural error, each reflexology centre would have been singled out individually and those that crossed the line into the medical would have been criminally charged because they are not doctors,” Justice Kiryabwire ruled.

The government announced the closure of the reflexology centres in March 2011, leading to the filing of a case by the practitioners under their umbrella body Reflexologists Association of Uganda and Alleluia Reflexology Health Solution and Nutrition Centre.

They argued that the government did not consult them before the order of their closure was made.

The judge also ordered government to pay costs of the suit.

Source: Daily Monitor (26/04/2013): http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Reflexology-facilities-must-reopen---court/-/688334/1758572/-/ch7btez/-/index.html