2 Catholic women from opposites side of the globe are responsible for codifying the law of Uganda

Ann Bateson of Minnesota and Vastina Rukimirana Nsanze of Uganda have a lot in common besides the faith that sustains them. They are both attorneys in their late 50s who were brought together by an unusual goal: refining law and life in Uganda.

Nsanze, Uganda’s commissioner of law revision since 1995, returned to Uganda this June after she and Bateson spent 10 years together compiling the scattered laws of Uganda into one cohesive database.

They first worked together 13 years ago when Bateson, now 59, spent a month in Uganda as a consultant to the government on law reform. Nsanze was executive secretary of the Uganda Law Reform Commission.

"My staff thought I was crazy to go," recalled Bateson, a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Roseville, who was Minnesota’s deputy reviser of statutes for four years and teaches at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.

Ugandan law had not been codified since 1964.