Author: NLM Correspondent

Individually, each is an organ of Government; collectively, they constitute an arm of Government BY EDWIN MUSONYE  The concept of Independent commissions and Offices (ICOs) is embedded in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. ICOs are not an addendum to the supreme law; they have an explicit mandate to protect the sovereignty of the people, secure the observance by all State organs of democratic values and principles, and promote constitutionalism. This means ICOs are actually powerful, relevant, and legitimate. This new order, meant to pull and hold politics and administrative practices up to a higher standard, has brought drastic changes in…

BY DR WESTEN K SHILAHO  The bulwark of Kenya’s democratisation is the rule of law – specifically the implementation of the 2010 constitution. The supreme law, which was only realised after a protracted struggle, provides for vertical and horizontal checks and balances. But a cohort of reactionary politicians – beneficiaries of the one party autocracy which ended in 1991 – have repeatedly set about undermining these checks and balances. They have done so by hollowing out the legislature, judiciary, office of the Attorney General and independent oversight bodies. Even county governments, the second tier of government, face interference, including militarisation…

BY PETER MWANGI Police service leadership world-wide is currently smarting from an unprecedented mass outrage following the recent bizarre murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the US. Kenya too is among countries such as India and South Africa where police brutality has been evidenced, particularly while enforcing safety measures against the raging Covid-19 pandemic. The degrading treatment of Mercy Cherono, an alleged crime suspect, by police officers in Nakuru adds to the charges. However, the global characteristic of the disturbing phenomenon is most telling. The core essence of policing is law enforcement and protection of life and…

Questions and reflections from the Law Society’s 100-years of history in restraining the Kenyan state BY GILBERT MUYUMBU More than 120 years since the first lawyers arrived in Kenya as vakils from India, the country’s premier bar association, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), has emerged, evolved, fought battles, won some and lost others, all in an effort to ensure respect for rule of law across the country, not least by the Kenyan state. LSK’s precise origin is unknown, although some authors trace it to 1911. Prior to its formation, advocates practising in Kenya were regulated by Kenya’s High Court,…

BY YINKA ADEGOKE While the global Covid-19 pandemic has overwhelmed governments and citizens around the world in all kinds of ways many of the challenges they had at the start of 2020 are still very much present. The first three months of 2020 were the second hottest on record going back to 1880, according to the National Centres for Environmental Information. Climate adaptation costs in Africa are predicted to reach up to $50 billion a year by 2050 in the event of the planet warming by an additional 2°C. The risks associated with climate change may be at least as…

BY SHADRACK MUYESU  In 2013, when confronted with a question on whether Messrs. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto could participate in the upcoming presidential election in spite of the charges facing them at the International Criminal Court, the Supreme Court affirmed an accused person’s right to be presumed innocent until proof of guilt is established and, in so doing, cleared the dynamic duo to contest the historic election. According to the Court, the presumption of innocence remained until the accused exhausted all appellate avenues available to them. Sometime later, the courts also decided that an economic crime could not be…

GAD OUMA is the kind of man the woke would say ‘gets it’. He is also the kind of man who would watch ‘Need for Speed’ – he is a sucker for fast cars, a Formula One buff, and an ardent Arsenal fan. When I remarked that he is an enemy of the people because he told me he represented Kenya Power & Lighting Co. against the People (remember Apollo Mboya’s class action suit?) he pondered reflectively – something he would do a hundred times more during our interview – determined I was joking (I was) and then laughed. He…

Last year, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) overtook foreign direct investment (FDI) as the largest source of incoming capital, having previously overtaken official development assistance (ODA) and private portfolio balance. This year, the World Bank, in its recent report, “COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens,” predicts that remittance flows will decline by 20 percent globally as the coronavirus renders swaths of people unemployed across the world. The report attributes this trend in part to the fact that immigrants are a demographic particularly vulnerable to unemployment during crises. Moreover, the authors say, travel restrictions and flight cancellations have…

By Thomas Vinod  The COVID-19 experience illustrates the failure of markets in preventing pandemics and the potential of public expenditures on a global scale to eventually spur a response. In a similar vein, the world’s top carbon emitters, China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan—responsible for a combined 60 percent of global effluents —have done little to avert a climate catastrophe, and they must now lead a global fiscal stimulus to tackle the problem. A big difference from the COVID-19 experience: Climate spending is not just to put money in people’s pockets, but to promote low-carbon economic growth. The…

A key concern is that COVID-19 will turn the current democratic recession into a depression, with authoritarianism sweeping across the globe like a pandemic.  The coronavirus outbreak presents a range of new challenges to democracy and human rights. Repressive regimes have responded to the pandemic in ways that serve their political interests, often at the expense of public health and basic freedoms. Even open societies face pressure to accept restrictions that may outlive the crisis and have a lasting effect on liberty. The pandemic is unfolding at a time when democracy is in decline. According to data compiled by Freedom…