Comrades power! Comrades power! Shots fired: Student activism, protests and the role of disruption as a communicative strategy in Africa
1. Introduction It comes with great sadness that I begin this article by mourning the death of my schoolmate. William Mayange, who went to Our Lady of Mercy Ringa Boys High School, was a third-year student at Maseno University at the time of his demise. He lost his life during the anti-government Azimio la Umoja […]
A graveyard for civil rights jurisprudence: The Devangana Kalita bail order
When the case was carried in appeal by the State to the Supreme Court, the Court did something extraordinary and wholly extra-legal: as an interim measure, while it considered the appeal, it passed an order stating that the High Court’s judgment was “not to be treated as precedent”. As I had written at the time, […]
Default bail, personal liberty, and the master of the roster
This post is not concerned with the merits of the judgment, although it is worthwhile to note that it is one of the few judgments on personal liberty and the CrPC that actually takes seriously the power imbalance between the State and the individual, and attempts to remedy that by insisting on giving procedural safeguards […]
Reasonable accommodation for religious beliefs in schools: The judgment of the Kenyan Court of Appeal
The High Court found against the Appellants/Petitioners, on the bases that they had indicated their willingness to comply with the school rules (which included mandatory mass), and that they had not established that mandatory mass amounted to an impingement of their own freedom of belief. The Court of Appeal – consisting of Kiage, Tuiyott, and […]
The illusion of judicial advancement: A commentary on judicial regard to procedural technicalities
Introduction “Legal technicality is a casual or colloquial phrase referring to a technical aspect of law and it is not a term of art in the law, has no exact meaning, and does not have a legal definition. That notwithstanding, the term implies that strict adherence to the letter of the law prevents the spirit […]
Defending the wretched of the earth; Supreme CourtPetition no. 16 of 2019; Non-Governmental Organisations Co-ordination Board vs Eric Gitari & Others
On 24th February, 2023, the Supreme Court of Kenya by a majority affirmed that (LGBTQI persons) have the right to register an association as envisioned under Article 36 of the Constitution of Kenya. The Court further affirmed that Article 27 covers sexual orientation as one of the protected grounds against sexual orientation. Preceding the Supreme […]
How to not commit a crime: Specific criminal sanctions in data privacy
Privacy laws obligate certain responsibilities to certain individuals in their areas of focus in the trust that they will perform as required. To imagine going against the established trust is thus of less importance in the pursuit of punishing those who wrong the data subjects. The penalty for the commission of an offence under the […]
Looking into the future of legal practice in Kenya
The legal market is one of the largest markets in the world. Day to day, whether one recognizes it or not, each of us operates against the backdrop of an implicit possibility of litigation however much we try to avoid it. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, legal practice and especially litigation was advanced through the […]