Kituo cha Sheria Research project team conducted a series of interviews with the community members, government officials, paralegals, NGOs and local institutions to evaluate the impact of legal empowerment programmes on access to justice for the poor and marginalized.
Kituo Cha Sheria (Kituo) team led by the Executive Director, Dr. Annette Mbogoh on 18th April 2023 appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Petitions chaired by Hon. Nimrod Mbai (MP, Kitui East) to present a public petition regarding proposed enactment of legislation on enforced disappearances. Dr
The Global Strategic Litigation Council on 31st January 2023 convened at the University of Nairobi, School of Law, Parklands Campus, for a regional consultation on strategic litigation for refugee rights.
Exclusive legal representation is one of those necessities that the poor can only dream of, especially when confronted with serious legal issues that must be resolved in courts of law. Due to the high costs of legal services, most indigent people in Kenya are unable to have their legal needs met.
Refresher trainings for prison paralegals are important given that new legal issues keep emerging and some prison paralegals leave, and new ones join the team. Kituo conducted a 6-day refresher training for 25 inmates and 5 officers from Langata Women Maximum Security Prison and Kisumu Maximum prison from 17th – 22nd October 2022 and 5th to 10th December 2022 respectively.
The PSK held its award ceremony after the Summit one 15th December 2022. One of the objectives of the summit was to award paralegals who have fiercely promoted access to Justice.
The first-place winner of the community award service award was Michael Asao.
The second-place winner for the best prison justice men was Kamiti Maximum Prison and the third-best winner for the best overall community paralegal was Jamia Abdulrahim.
It was a great pleasure and an honor to have Carolyne Abong Senior Policy Advisor – Political Affairs, Human Rights, Rule of Law at Embassy of the Netherlands in Kenya attends the Summit. Kituo appreciate our development partner Embassy of the Netherlands in Kenya for their relentless support that has substantially contributed towards achievement of our strategy of strengthening access to justice for the poor and marginalized and promoting human rights.
The 2nd Paralegal Society of Kenya (PSK) summit took place from 14th to 15th December 2022 at the Tamarind tree hotel, Nairobi. The paralegal summit seeks to bring together paralegals from all parts of Kenya and East Africa to see exchange of best practices, challenges as well as possible avenues of collaboration. The 2022 theme was ‘Towards a robust and vibrant paralegal movement’.
The objectives of the summit included mobilizing paralegals to register as Paralegals Society of Kenya members, building a capacity of Paralegals so as to establish and strengthen the county fora and providing a platform for engagement between paralegals and duty-bearers in the justice sector as well as providing a platform for experience sharing among the paralegals.
Mary Airo, the National Coordinator Paralegal Society of Kenya In her remarks, appreciated the passionate work done by paralegals noting that they wholeheartedly give legal services to the communities to ensure that the poor and vulnerable access justice.
UNDP’s Zainab pointed out that the realization of human rights and access to justice are crucial aspects of the quest for sustainable development. She also noted that without strong guarantees for access to justice particularly for the poor and vulnerable, choice and opportunity to access resources and participate in governance would remain at risk.
Justus Munyithya, the Chair of the Board of Directors, Kituo Cha Sheria in his remarks, stated that one of the critical goals of sustainable development is to ensure that no one is left behind.
“Article 48 of the constitution of Kenya, guarantees every Kenyan the right to access justice, which is yet to be fully realized due to the state’s political nature.” Said Mr. Munyithya.
Mr. Munyithya added that this right still remains out of reach for many poor and marginalized groups due to barriers to access to justice which are numerous and include the lack of political will to implement laws and policies that promote access to justice, high costs associated with the formal justice system, advocates fees, filing fees and general inadequacy of awareness of human rights.
Community paralegals can come in to address the environment and Climate In Justices faced by communities. As reservoirs of information, community paralegals can create awareness at the community level on issues of climate change and make communities aware of the need to tackle Climate Change. Paralegals can carry out advocacy work on climate change thus help organize communities to demand change.
Evans Muswahili Ladema, Kituo’s paralegal from Vihiga Community Justice Centre who is so passionate about the environment and Climate Justice participated at the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 that started on 6th and stretched through to 18th of November in Egypt, courtesy of generous funding from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and UN Climate Change accreditation facilitated by Kituo Cha Sheria and Namati Kenya.
COP27 presents an opportunity for all stakeholders to come together to find concrete solutions to the global climate emergency, including mitigation, adaptation and resilience, loss and damage, and climate finance.
Evans spoke on behalf of the poor and marginalized in Kenya seeking climate justice. His presentation touched on three key issues; relationships between food systems and climate change, scaling regenerative food systems as a climate solution, and gender issues in food systems and climate action. He looks forward to having the ambitious goals and commitments set by UN member states in reducing global warming put into practical action.
Members of the African Centre of Excellence for Access to Justice (ACE-AJ) together with the regional and international partners in community justice on 19th October 2022 convened for a 2-day participatory meeting in Nairobi to discuss and draft an action plan in preparation for the High-Level Political Forum 2023 (HLPF) side event.
The action plan will clarify the necessary resources, formulate a timeline, and detail the necessary tasks to be completed to ensure a successful event. A key focus for HLPF2023 will be on financing. A possible topic for consideration is the ‘Challenges and opportunities around financing community-based justice.
This Side-event of the HLPF, held outside the official programme provides a great opportunity to discuss the theme and SDGs under review at the HLPF2023, identify new and emerging issues, and help spread greater awareness of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
While African governments have made commitments under goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063/2 of the African Union to ensure access to justice for all, in reality, a significant number of people from the continent lack access to justice.
Building momentum towards key 2023 “moments” will to help hold governments accountable to SDG16+, and to pressure them to make more concrete commitments to action by showcasing civil society action around SDG16+ through “Storytelling” efforts, to highlight the leading role that civil society is playing to advancing SDG16+
ACE-AJ will continue to mobilize support across civil society for SDG16+ action and commitments around key 2023 “moments”, including the 2023 SDGs Summit and “Summit for the Future”. Additionally, ACE-AJ will mobilize resources to support grassroots actions around SDG16+ at the national and local levels, to build out more localized movements led by key civil society partners.
Kituo cha Sheria, through the Forced Migration Programme conducted a 2-day capacity building for Refugee Led organizations (RLOs) at Waridi Paradise Hotel in Nairobi. The training that took place on 21st and 22nd Nov. 2022 covered basics in Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), the Refugee Act 2021, Durable solutions as provided for in the Act in relation to RLOs operations, Financial management, Advocacy strategies and Principles of corporate governance.
Through the support of Open Society Foundations Kituo continues to build the Capacity of the refugee-led organizations to enhance meaningful participation, collaboration and protection of refugee rights.
All over the world, people are fleeing persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Intersex refugee children face discrimination, violence and exclusion. It’s our duty as human rights defenders to create awareness on Intersex refugee children’s rights.
Conversations inform policy and reminds the state that they have an obligation to enforce positive rights. All human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are.
