Deputy Chairperson National Elections Commission

Honorable Dr. Francis Luigi Adwok is the Deputy Chairperson of the National Elections Commission. Hon. Adwok was sworn in on July 3, 2026. As Deputy Chairperson, he is responsible for the supervision of general administration and finance, and of rules and regulations.

A lawyer by training and a judge by long service, Hon. Adwok has practised law since 1998 and sat on the bench from 2001 to 2013, hearing cases in courts in both Sudan and South Sudan. He now appears as an advocate before all courts in the Republic of South Sudan and in Sudan. In July 2015 the Office of the Chief Justice appointed him a Commissioner for Oaths of the Judiciary of the Republic of South Sudan.

He has contributed to the reform of the country’s justice system as a member of the Judicial Reform Committee between 2023 and 2024, work for which the Committee recognised him in October 2024. In 2025 he was appointed to head the Immunity Lifting Committee of the South Sudan Bar Association.

Before joining the judiciary he held public service posts in Sudan, in the Ministry of Relations with the National Assembly, in the National Assembly itself, and in the Information, Studies and Research Administration of the Council of Ministers. He also served as chairperson of the sub trade union authority at the Ministry of Relations with the National Assembly, and as secretary for social affairs in the trade union authority of the Presidency.

Hon. Adwok read law at the Faculty of Law, Alexandria University in Egypt, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws in 1994. He went on to take a master’s degree in law at Al-Zaiem Al-Azhari University in Sudan, and was awarded a doctorate in law by the same university in 2014. He completed his secondary education at Dongola Secondary School in Sudan. He was admitted to the bar in Sudan in 1996 and holds certificates of practice before all courts from both the Sudan Bar Association and the South Sudan Bar Association.

He has also trained in trade union administration with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung of the Federal Republic of Germany together with the Sudanese Workers’ Trade Federation, in intellectual property in Geneva, and in computing and technical maintenance at the Don Bosco Technical Institute in Egypt.

Hon. Adwok is the author of The Effect of the Employment Contract in Jurisprudence (Fiqh) and Law: A Comparative Study. His master’s research examined the guiding principles of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan between analysis and application, and his doctoral research addressed the effect of the contractual relationship on the employment contract.

His published papers include “The Employer’s Disciplinary Authority over the Employee” in Nile Basin Studies, Elnilien University, edition 19 of 2013, and “The Employee’s Commitment to Perform Work in Law and Islamic Jurisprudence” in the scientific magazine of Al-Zaiem Al-Azhari University in 2014. More recently he presented “The Legal Immunity of Advocates in South Sudan” and “Judgment in Absentia and Stay of Execution”, both in 2025, to the Vision Center for Legal Studies and Training and the South Sudan Bar Association.

Hon. Adwok was born in 1966 in Malakal and is from Fashoda County in Upper Nile State.