Kenya

A judgment by Kenya’s apex court has found significant gaps in the law dealing with orders of foreign courts. These were discovered in the course of a judgment related to litigation being brought by seven local tea-pickers employed by a Scottish company operating in Kenya. In addition to its finding on the central issue involved, the supreme court ordered that its judgment be brought to the attention of the bodies responsible for preparing and making new legislation, with a ‘signal of the utmost urgency’ for action on developing the law to make it conform to the constitution.

Kenya’s highest court has delivered a decision that strongly defends the independence of the judiciary and, by extension, the independence of the mechanism by which judges are chosen, the Judicial Service Commission. It’s a watershed decision in that it will significantly change the way in which members of the JSC are appointed: the court said the president of the country had no function, not even a ceremonial one, in appointing and gazetting JSC members and that the role that the president had assumed in the past was a ‘fundamental contravention’ of the constitution.

A cohort of judges has been carefully trained by Jifa to deal with environmental and climate change cases. But what if those who bring petitions to court, even those who may have a genuine case, don’t present evidence that measures up? The latest decision from Kenya’s environment and land court illustrates the problem.