Author: NLM Correspondent

DR Tom Odhiambo There is no doubt that devolution was worth having. Previously sleepy village towns seem to be thriving. A journey to different parts of Kenya reveals changes that would not have been imaginable under the “centralised” governance of the last decade. There are enough signs that the devolution of government has gone beyond the Constitution. On the ground, in mashinani at the least, for the very first time many Kenyans see, feel, argue with, and most importantly, participate in the life of their government, even if it is merely at the local level. Kenyans must protect and cultivate…

Prof Makau Mutua 2014 was a very bad year for Africa and Africana Studies. The large communities of scholars that study and explore the worlds of Africa and the African Diaspora lost two intellectual giants. The first to go, on January10, while on a family visit to Mexico City, was Joel Barkan, formerly a professor at the University of Iowa, but at the time of his passing a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Then on October 12, Ali Mazrui, another giant, departed while at his home in Vestal, New York, outside Binghamton University.…

63pc of respondents said content-led marketing is an innovative way for advertisers to reach audiences, brand engagement and perception heightened by transparency, integration and a premium environment BBC StoryWorks, the content marketing arm of BBC Advertising, is pioneering new ways of understanding the emotional impact of content-led marketing by measuring consumers’ subconscious reaction to campaigns on BBC.com. In a study titled “The Science of Engagement”, its in-house insight team, in partnership with facial coding experts CrowdEmotion, combined traditional research metrics with facial coding to understand how brands can use content-led marketing to effectively engage with consumers. BBC Advertising plans to…

By Oscar Onyango The purpose of insurance is to neutralise or mitigate the fear of financial ruin. In Kenya, the youth form the majority of the population, and therefore for insurance market players to ignore this important segment amounts to self robbery of huge financial returns and is no doubt a slow poison on the future health of insurance market. The brutal honesty is that the future survival of the insurance market is highly dependent on the approach given to the market presented by this youthful population. With competition from the numerous bank products targeting the youth, insurance market players…

Elsie Oyoo Each petroleum sector functions within an environment called a petroleum regime. At the top of this regime stands the constitution of that country. The relevant petroleum laws, policies and regulations come in at the second level, and after these, the petroleum contract features with the various sub-contracts that depend on it.  Only these contracts can deal with the finer issues that may arise between the State and the International Oil Companies (IOCs) during exploration. These contracts, especially the petroleum contracts, form an integral part of exploration. The petroleum contract is deemed the most important of the various agreements…

Simon Nzioka Article 11(1) of International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) provides for the right to adequate standard of living, which includes the right to adequate housing. This article provides imperative obligations upon state parties to ICESCR, yet they are barely observed in relation to development initiatives. Often, states, in finding land for the installation of housing facilities, cause displacement of vulnerable people in the society – most of the time against their will – resulting in forced evictions to pave way to these installations. These displacements result to massive violations of the individual’s rights in particular…

Ranier Fsadni, writing about Bloggers and their sources in the “Times of Malta” on January 21, raised an important issue, in the realm of media law, which needs to be addressed legislatively. He refers to the question of confidentiality of journalistic sources. Without being unnecessarily legalistic in this short contribution, the gist of all these past contributions is to the tenor that the press laws need updating, not only in relation to the protection of journalistic sources but in other aspects too, such as the need to repeal the provision in the law related to criminal libel and concomitantly increasing…

Achero Mufuayia Kenya’s judicial system consists of a hierarchy of courts whose decisions are binding on the litigants. The courts are a creation of the Constitution of Kenya as well as legislation that provides for their structures, powers and roles. The law also provides for the jurisdiction of the courts. However, there are quasi-judicial bodies within the public academic institutions with powers and jurisdiction to adjudicate on disputes arising between and among staff and students. All public academic institutions in Kenya are established by the University Act of 2012. In addition, institutions have regulations that regulate admission of students as…

Lanji Ouko Article 10 of the Constitution, under clause (3) stipulates that “All state organs and all public officers have the duty to address the needs of vulnerable groups within society, including women, older members of society, persons with disabilities, children, youth, members of minority or marginalised communities, and members of particular ethnic, and religious communities.” In attempts to gauge individual and institutional responses to gender-based violence, a number of studies have focused on the action of reporting by the victim, the services the victim receives, the role of the health staff and the institutions the victim reported to, and…

Ali Abdi “Little could be more corrosive of the public’s fragile trust in government if it were clear that public authorities could freely renege on their past undertakings or long-established practices” – Christopher Forsyth In the interpretation of laws, Courts have, in pursuit of new jurisprudence, evolved the principles of administrative law solely to control the exercise of power.  These principles are intended to provide safeguard to the citizens against abuse or misuse of power by the instrumentalities or agencies of the State. One of the latest and important of these principles is the ‘doctrine of legitimate expectation’, which is…