At disposal of the wildlife activists are many local and international newspapers, TV and radios blogs and speaking opportunities here and overseas, which they use to maximum effect. Unsurprisingly, the world press plasters these poaching tales across their front pages and the story gains unstoppable momentum. The irony is that the elite armchair conservationists’ tactics have ended up increasingly alienating communities who bear the brunt of human wildlife conflict through deaths, injuries or property destruction. The communities know that when they suffer losses, no such outpouring of sympathy to their plight is ever expressed. The practice of self-serving mourning of…
Author: NLM writer
BY KATY MIGIRO AND MAGDALENA MIS Rising before dawn, the women emerged from their ramshackle shacks and squelched through the mud to stand in line for water in Kibera, Nairobi’s biggest slum.Seven hours later, bullet-grey skies drizzled on and off, but the women stuck by their yellow jerrycans in the glutinous mud, awaiting their turn at the precious water tap. “Water is life,” said Judith Makhoha, a mother of three, who was buying 200 litres of water to do her laundry. “You can’t live without water.”Only half of Nairobi’s three million residents have piped water in their homes, according to…
Justice Riaga Omolo Justice Omollo joined the Judiciary in 1975 as a district magistrate. He was appointed High Court judge in 1985 and elevated to the Court of Appeal in 1993 where he grew to become the senior most judge and also a board member of the Judiciary Training Institute prior to the establishment of the Supreme Court.The Board found Justice Riaga Omolo to be lacking in “independence and impartiality” in a series of decisions he had given in some highly publicised political matters. He was found to have bent the law in favour of the incumbent President at a…
BY DAVID WANJALA “It is our finding that none of the Superior Courts has the jurisdiction to review the process or outcome attendant upon the operation of the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board by virtue of the Constitution, and the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Act,” the Supreme Court, on November 5, 2014, ruled, effectively ending the carrier of some of the longest serving and senior most judges in Kenya.The ruling, rendered from a consolidation of three appeals raised by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), Attorney General and the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board (JMVB) has shuttered any hope…
BY BEVERLINE ONGARO Among the various on-going transitional and institutional reforms within the Kenyan Constitutional framework, the judicial reforms have been in the spotlight and subject of public discourse among legal practitioners, stakeholders in the justice sector and the citizens at large. There is worldwide consensus that Judiciary is the vanguard and the sentinel of democracy and rule of law, and the protector of people’s rights and fundamental freedoms. Even in failed democracies, people hang onto expectation that they can turn to Judiciary to take away the chalice of injustices imposed on them by dictatorial regimes. Therefore the limelight and…
BY SHADRACH SHARU MUYESU Debate over the powers of the legislature in Kenya, its relationship with the other arms of Government and an apparent encroachment of these three arms into each other’s territory has dominated the country’s political space. Just recently, the public was treated to spat between the National Assembly represented by its Speaker Justin Muturi and the Executive. PresidentUhuru has been drawn into the debate. The bone of contention has been whether the National Assembly was right in summoning Cabinet Secretaries to respond to questions relating to their dockets. In addressing this question and by extension the nexus…
BY TIM KAMAU NGOTHO It is evident that modern legal practice has increasingly become more complex, with larger firms, new and emerging areas of practice and global reach. Whilst legal-technical skills are core, acquisition and management of diverse skills such as leadership, management negotiation, communication, conflict management and emotional intelligence are critical. These equip the lawyer to engage effectively in such a dynamic environment. Complex times call for complex solutions. It is now widely accepted that decision making in the new workplace is a complex process must involve the interaction of many disciplines. A decision maker has to use knowledge…
Kenya has up to July 2015 to counter Somali’s claims over its territory.The war-torn country has instituted proceedings against Kenya at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, with regard to “a dispute concerning maritime delimitation in the Indian Ocean”, the UN said in a statement.Equipped with sketch maps, Somalia claims that Kenya has occupied its territory, and given it out to oil explorers. The area in dispute at the Kenya coast has about five exploration blocks already occupied by a number of companies, including America’s Anardako Petroleum Corporation, Eni S.P.A of Italy,…
BY DR SIEGE OTTO Last month my contribution to The Nairobi Law Monthly concentrated exclusively on the adverse environmental and associated socio-economic effects of Ethiopia’s Gilgel Gibe III Hydroelectric Dam. It must be appreciated though that Ethiopia and Kenya must be looked upon in tandem regarding issues surrounding ‘Gibe III’, as both governments signed a legally-binding Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in January 2012, against the advice by international experts and counsel by UNESCO, and even contrary to a prior resolution passed by the Kenyan Parliament in 2011.It has been demonstrated beyond reasonable scientific doubt that there will be far-reaching, devastating…
On September 22, 2014, Gatundu North MP Moses Kuria pleaded with the head of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) to have his incitement case settled out of court. He had been charged June with incitement following remarks he made hot on the heels of a a terrorist attack on Nairobi’s Gikomba Market.“I beseech you to consider settling the above captioned case within the meaning of Article 159(2)(C) of the Constitution. I have made the request strictly without prejudice threats and/or intimidation of any kind,” Kuria wrote to the NCIC. “I am ready and willing to participate in conciliation…
