A Human Rights Defender's Perspective

The elections (at least the voting part of it) may now be over, and it is such a relief to see people (at least the ‘common Wanjiku’) back to work, back to their daily hustles, awakened to the challenges of life and a realization that political process are in many ways a gamble – a process where upon lending your overt support (almost to the point of antagonizing your very important shop keeper who faithfully sorts you our when the month hits a “bad corner”) they now sit back and PRAY that; one, whoever they voted for will actually deliver on their undertakings and pledges, and two which is even more important, your shopkeeper will quickly forget all the bashing you gave him and happily sort you out again. Many countries the world over grapple with governments keen on using their power to curtail media freedom or using their influence to control what the public can have access to in terms of public information. Thanks to a vibrant civil society such cases are on a decline and...

Addressing one of the greatest challenges of access to the Court, Rwanda recently pledged a declaration, known as the Banjul Commission, and individuals, as it is required under Article 5 (3) and Article 34 (6) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Article 34(6) of the Protocol restricts access to the Court by NGOs and Individuals as allowed in Article 5 (3) to only those state parties that have made the declaration. Rwanda has with this declaration authorized individuals and NGOs to directly take their petitions involving Rwanda before the Court in Arusha, subject to the reservation that all local remedies would have been exhausted before the competent organs and jurisdictions of the Republic of Rwanda. It is high time that member states followed suit by leading and supporting the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms from the front! My take _

Well there has been a lot of castigation of the civil society for constantly going to court raising all manner of constitutional issues, which in the view of those who castigate, is a sign of idleness and that these organisations have no interest of the Kenyan people at heart.  As the inordinately long tallying exercise went on, and the tensions that arose out of suspicions of a failure of the systems meant to guarantee a relay of results real-time, a group went to court and filed a Petition 152 of 2013.  The crux of the petition filed by AFRICOG with an affidavit sworn by Gladwell  Otieno - a well-known activist for rule of law and good governance - sought a halt to the manual tallying process allegedly done without verification of the actual constituency based results, to resume the use of the electronic tallying system, to allow unfettered assess to the tallying process by agents and accredited observers etc.  In justific...