Author: NLM Correspondent

KEVIN MOTAROKI You have to listen when Minayo Sagala speaks. She talks in contralto, her accent is impeccable, and she uses phrases like ‘born, bred, raised, married and procreating in Kenya’. Her other name is Maureen but I didn’t get that from her; she prefers Minayo. She has practised law for over ten years but has never set foot in a courtroom to practice as an advocate. She specialises in corporate-commercial law practice, and social change has always been a point of focus for her, she says. Which is why after her pupillage and job at top-tier law firm Anjarwalla…

Petition No. 51 of 2015 Wangui Wachira On June 16, 2016, the High Court of Kenya sitting in Mombasa ruled that the use of rectal examinations on alleged homosexuals was legal. Two men identified in the petition as C.O.I and G.M.N claimed that doctors at Mombasa’s Coast General Provincial Hospital, in collaboration with law enforcement officials, had violated their rights by subjecting them to forced rectal examinations, HIV tests, and other blood tests in February 2015. The issue for determination before the court was whether rectal examination on the alleged homosexuals was unconstitutional. Presiding judge, Matthew Emukule upheld the use…

By Barack Muluka Fred Matwanga was a Kenyan diplomat working for the UN in New York in 2006. One day, Matwanga got in trouble with the US authorities for allegedly assaulting his son. The federal police intended to commence legal action against him for assault and battery. However, the matter came to quick closure when Matwanga asserted diplomatic immunity. This was by no means an isolated case. Shimokoji, Japan’s Counsul-General in Canadaad, admitted to punching his wife in the eye in a domestic brawl in New York, in 1999. He told the police that this was a very normal thing…

While the present case focuses on Jacques Pitteloud for allegedly demanding a Sh5.4 billion bribe, it has a second part to it which is related to Kenyan anti-corruption officials. It reveals how top officials of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) were working in parallels to each other over the issue of Anglo-leasing settlement by Deepak Kamani. In claiming to state the Kenya government’s position over Anglo-leasing settlement, EACC deputy director Michael Mubea said that if the Kamanis were willing to settle, that could be looked at and that if Pitteloud said that he could make that happen, that the…

Details of text messages by former Swiss ambassador in Nairobi Jacques Pitteloud to a corruption suspect in Kenya read like a fictional novel. Often held in high moral regard, the kind of text messages sent by Pitteloud to businessman Deepak Kamani who, along with Sri Lanka-born billionaire Anura Perera, was among those charged in the 18 multi-billion Anglo-leasing contracts in Kenya, have all but dismantled the high pedestal western envoys often assume as prefects to African governments on good governance. On June 29, the Swiss Federal Tribunal in its judgment before the Federal Penal Tribunal ordered the Swiss Federal Prosecutor…

Zambia’s marred election this year is a particular disappointment. In 1991, it was the second country on the continent to expel an incumbent ruler at the ballot box, following Benin by a few months. It again booted out the ruling party in 2011, establishing a healthy pattern of alternation that now seems threatened. Zambia is an unnerving example of how democracy, which had seemed finally to be about to bloom on the world’s poorest continent, is still struggling to take root in many parts of it. Looked at through a wide lens of history, Africa’s standard of governance is almost…

By Nadrat Mazrui The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development adopted unanimously at the United Nations by Heads of State is, to say the least, highly ambitious. If it is to be taken seriously, it has the potential to change the development paradigm tremendously.  The sustainable development goals, herein referred to as SDGs, have the opportunity to correct the errors and misgivings of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs failed to adequately address the flaws of the global economic and financial systems and the ecological sustainability. The 2030 Agenda, however, offers a response to urgent global problems such as accelerating…

By Shadrack Muyesu Constitutions have been defined as political charters that define relationships between the governors and the governed. As such, constitutional amendments are nothing more than political concessions that evidence supervening political moods. The place of the Constitution, however, demands that they be sufficiently rigid so as to rid the right to amend of mala fides, as well as safeguard its certainty. The truth of this statement not only suggests an inherent imperfection of the Constitution, it also alludes to the existence of superior rules independent of or within the Constitution which constitutional amendments bona fide ought to adhere…

By Kelly Malenya Some time last month, I spoke with a senior in the trade – an advocate admitted to the bar way before I was born. It was a casual talk and I sought to pick his brain on the seemingly common but very pertinent topic of “judicial independence”. According to him, most of us, young lawyers and even litigants who never interacted with the judicial system during the one-party State, may take for granted liberties we enjoy now that cost many lives then. He observed with concern that he had not seen many of us appreciate and show…

By Dr Charles Khamala Unless proceedings are open to public scrutiny, officials tend to strike clandestine deals.  “Organised,” “enterprise” and “syndicated” crimes thus display a market-basis and benefit from the business world’s analytical concepts. The effectiveness of different regulators is explicable by Marxist dialectics between the state, business interests, pressure groups and public opinion. Many lives can be saved, for instance, with rudimentary attention to safety measures to prevent the great harm emanating from the spate of Kenya’s collapsing building constructions and other industrial accidents. However, Laureen Snider (2002) explains that industrialists, who sacrifice healthy working conditions upon the altar…