Author: NLM Correspondent

From the sky, it looks like an entire city is adrift in the Indian Ocean. A forest of tower-blocks rise above the emerald-coloured water while just a handful of trees poke through the canopy of concrete. For those living in Malé, the overcrowded capital of the Maldives, there is no choice but to build upwards. Caged by the sea, they have no more land to spread onto, yet the city’s population has soared by nearly 52% since 2006. The last census in 2014 counted 158,000 people crammed into the city’s 2.2 sq. miles (5.7 sq. km) of space, and officials say the…

By Isaac Swila Long before the emergence of betting and gaming firms, the Kenyan sports landscape was that of squalor. Not only was the industry financially starved but also clubs, federations and associations struggled to make ends meet. Cases of teams failing to honour championships and tournaments were commonplace – they still are. On the football scene, it was “usual”, or rather “normal” to find players trekking to training for lack of fare. Cases of others being locked out of their apartments for defaulting on rent payment were aplenty – they still are. Well, it’s not that the gaming industry…

BY LUKE MULUNDA Take a moment, if you like, and observe the next presidential political rally. Chances are you will see lots of hopeful people and hear loud propaganda and enticing campaign pledges. Take a keener look and you will identify the presence of money almost everywhere – from body wear, campaign paraphernalia, entertainment to the unseen logistical works. Elections are about financial might as much as political power. Every serious political party often has a financial war chest to fund its operations and campaign. In Kenya, 2017 is no exception. With a General Election billed to be decisive for…

By Dennis Ndiritu I Kennedy in  ‘Patients, Doctors and Human Rights’ (1998), Essays in Medical Law and Ethics, notes that the concept of consent operates as a unifying principle running through the provision of health care. It represents the legal and ethical expression of the human rights to have one’s autonomy and self-determination respected. The requirement that the patient’s consent be obtained operates as a constraint on the power of the healthcare professional. The issue of consent is tied to age as it is only with the attainment of the appropriate age as prescribed law that a child can be…

By Newton Arori According to the Black’s Law Dictionary, an identification parade is a police identification procedure in which a criminal suspect and other physically similar persons are shown to the victim or a witness to determine whether the suspect can be identified as the perpetrator of the crime. An identification parade is held to enable an eyewitness to identify the suspect whom s/he allegedly saw. The history of identification parades is English and dates back as far as 1860 when they were instituted as metropolitan police order. The order required that “the police should place a suspect amongst his…

By Macharia Kaguru The entrenchment of corruption in Kenya has brought with it direct and indirect effects in all spheres of socio-economic development of the country. Put differently, corruption affects the proper running of the government, distorts the correct functioning of socio-economic institutions, hampers transparency and exploits the human person for selfish interest. In addition, corruption, especially within the public service and the government in general, renders respect for law and rules obsolete. Whilst Kenya has an elaborate anti-corruption regime, corruption is still deeply entrenched. In the 2015 global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International, Kenya scored 25…

By Newton Arori “Adverse possession allows a trespasser – a person guilty of a tort, or even a crime in the eyes of the law – to regain title to land which he has illegally possessed for 12 years. How 12 years of illegality can suddenly be converted to legal title is, logically and morally, baffling” – Justice Bhandari in State of Haryana vs. Mukesh Kumar & Others (2011) Adverse possession is a process by which the entire ownership of an estate is extinguished by lapse of time. For a claim of adverse possession to uphold in Kenya, it must…

Martin Nyakundi O’Barimo As Secretary General of Television Viewers and Radio Listeners Association of Kenya (TEVIRA), a consumer organisation that protects the interests of viewers of television and listeners of radio in Kenya, I often read the concerns of Kenyans on our ever-busy Facebook page. Among the many things that concern parents are the reports of rampant corruption, involvement of the youth in dangerous crime, alcohol and drug abuse, illegitimate sexual relations, delinquency generally, and gambling. Corruption, on its part, is threatening to lead to extinction of the poor and the powerless. This is because it ensures resources do not…

The Nyumba Kumi initiative, enabled by the adoption of a Digital Identity card and integrated into the larger Safaricom Surveillance Camera system, would be a powerful tool of control as it reaches in to all aspects of the individual’s life. That is to say, beyond movement, the Digital Identity Card would enable control of all social and economic transactions of individuals, society-wide. And this is no exaggeration; this is the vision as articulated by the Government of Kenya itself. To paint a picture, today many buildings and institutions are inaccessible without Identification Cards. The manual nature of the system makes…

By Arkan Yasin “L ‘etat c’est moi” – Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715) “I am the State.” For the top honcho(s) as Safaricom, this would suffice as the standard “State of the Republic Address”. “As the information state replaces the bureaucratic welfare state, control over information creation, processing, flows, and use has become the most effective form of power – Braman, Sandra What does Safaricom’s over-arching dominance mean for citizens? Here is a real-life example that perfectly epitomises the answer to this question. During the 2007 post-election violence, the press quoted then CEO Michael Joseph as saying that…