Embattled Ruto’s mass suicides inquiry ‘unconstitutional’

Already under severe criticism for his stance on new taxes and the brutal suppression by police of protests against the scheme, Kenya’s President William Ruto must now come to terms with yet another setback, this time from the courts. He had appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the shocking death of hundreds of people in what has come to be called the Shakahola massacre. But a High Court judge has now found Ruto acted unconstitutionally when he established the inquiry. Named for the village at the apparent epicentre of the cult whose preachings led to the mass suicides, the deaths at Shakahola have horrified Kenyans. Once the alleged mastermind was arrested, Ruto moved quickly to gazette an inquiry into what had happened, who was to blame and what could be done to prevent such a disaster in the future. Now, however, the court has found that sections of a 1961 Commission of Inquiry Act under which he purported to act, were unconstitutional and a relic of ‘the imperial presidency’ under which Kenya had been governed in the period before the present Constitution. Carmel Rickard, in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, takes a look at the court’s decision and its likely impact.

Kenya judgment

A Matter of Justice