Author: NLM Correspondent

By Eric Mukoya The office of the Chief Justice established by Article 161 (2a) of the Constitution is revered for the power it carries, but importantly the significance and direction it provides on constitutionalism. It needs to be known as the custodian of the rule of law, justice, and legal integrity. It isn’t easy to understand why legal practitioners, for a long time, remained reserved almost to a course of self-preservation. It was easy to dismiss this practice that seemed to represent cultural superiority embedded in the language, occasions, the dressing, and sometimes, the associations of many legal practitioners. The…

By Solomon Atela The place of integrity within a personal and organizational space is an invaluable distinctive organizational capability. The efficacy of systems and process is an outcome of the integrity of the people running them. An electoral system must be both ethically and legally compliant, and of necessity founded on the tenets of fairness, inclusivity, openness, justice, transparency, and accountability. Elections is not an event but a process whose integrity goes beyond the happenings on an election day. The actions and decisions of all electoral stakeholders should be born out of a consummate desire for greater good. This responsibility…

By Ouma Ojango What happens to the trend that has become synonymous with President Uhuru Kenyatta of relying on military personnel in the running of key government functions when he leaves the seat of power in early September or thereabout? But, probably, the first question should be, what, in the first place, pushed President Kenyatta to go fishing in the military barracks? Why did the military generals become his most trusted stewards of key government agenda as is evident in every crucial sector of his government including Construction, Immigration, Trade, and the Criminal Justice System, just to mention a few?…

By SHARLENE MUTHURI Often when I mention to entrepreneurs that I work with startups in the justice sector, there comes an assumption that my work primarily involves funding non-profit organisations in grassroot communities that organise youth programmes – which is great but also rather unfortunate as it shows the over-reliance on donor funded opportunities in the justice sectors in Kenya and the East-African region. At the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), we aim to make justice user-friendly, which is still a far-fetched idea here in East Africa. This is because the journey to accessing justice is perceived as…

Beyond the top banker’s stellar performance at KCB, the closet was always full of skeletons By NLM Writer It may be too early to find out which of these skeletons consumed him, or if he just opted to take an early retirement some seven months before his contract expired. The announcement came as a surprise. While everyone expected Joshua Oigara to leave his C-suite office at KCB this year, he had some months to go on the extension to his contract that the board had sanctioned. Yet, in May the board abruptly announced that he would be exiting to be…

As the election day approaches, politicians are having a field day as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) remains handicapped in implementing the Electoral Code of Conduct. A High Court decision that found that declared the Electoral Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee unconstitutional, and that the committee has no powers to summon offenders, has led politicians to do as they wish, aware that the only avenue the High Court left of punishing those who breach the Code will take too long to bother them. The High Court directed that IEBC refers any cases of breaches to the Electoral Code…

A report released by the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA) has cited the current political uncertainty as one of the main issues that will affect the petroleum industry resulting in high prices in the coming days. PIEA together with the NCBA Bank yesterday addressed trade issues that will affect the industry including the high and rising domestic inflation and the strengthening of the US dollar that is impacting the cash flow. Speaking during a briefing at a Nairobi hotel, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining Principal Secretary (PS) Mr Andrew Kamau, stated that the government’s plan to raise gas to…

By NLM Writer On May 23, 2022, the High Court at Nairobi in CONSTITUTIONAL PETITION NO. E495 OF 2021 (A.C Mrima, J) declared that under the Kenyan constitution and laws, the police cannot prefer charges against accused persons nor can they prepare a charge sheet. The power of the police begins and ends with investigations into criminal offences. They may make recommendations to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) but have no power to prosecute or draft charges. The court declared that prosecution of criminal offences in Kenya must only be undertaken by lawful Prosecutors, being the DPP or other…

By Prof John Harbeson The United Nations-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals were established in 2015 with its clearly articulated overall objective of “leaving no one behind” in the quest to overcome all dimensions of poverty to the maximum extent possible by 2030. The SDG project has been a greatly expanded successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the same objective during the first fifteen years of the new century. In mid-2022, the life of the SDG project is at its midpoint, an appropriate time for a review of the project’s achievements, remaining challenges and prospects for meeting the seventeen over-arching…

It is silly season again. Next month, Kenyans head to the polls to elect their political leaders for the next five years. It is the season that common sense takes leave from us. We shall conduct the periodic ritual of sending all manner of characters to represent us in the august houses, both in the counties and at the national level. As is the norm, Kenyans will pick their worst sons and daughters, and then cry until the next cycle. Someone lied to us that democracy is an end in itself. Is it? For democracy has turned Africa into the…