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Advancing the Right to Demonstrate in Kenya Through Negotiated Management

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Governance, Human Rights, and Political Transformation in Africa

Abstract

Kenya is a State Party to international and regional legal instruments that guarantee the right to demonstrate and this right is equally enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. The reality, however, for those who seek to exercise this right has been that they are oftentimes met with excessive use of force by the police. The result has been that demonstrators have been maimed and even lost their lives, particularly in demonstrations held in periods before and after elections as was the case in 2007, 2013 and 2017. Kenya’s current legislative framework, this chapter argues, has adopted an approach where demonstrations are tolerated as opposed to being facilitated, with very little or no tolerance to disruption of public life. It demonstrates that the policing approach to demonstrations in Kenya has followed the escalated force model characterised by, inter alia, use of force to disperse demonstrators, including use of physical punishment.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, “KILL Those Criminals”Security Forces Violations in Kenya’s August 2017 Elections (New York: Amnesty International/Human Rights Watch, 2017), 1, accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/kenya1017_web.pdf.

  2. 2.

    Aislinn Laing, “Mayhem in Kenya as Police Tackle Protest Over ‘Corrupt’ Poll Officials,” The Telegraph, May 16, 2016, accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/16/mayhem-in-kenya-as-police-tackle-protest-over-corrupt-poll-offic/.

  3. 3.

    Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya’s Post-2007 Election Violence (Nairobi: KNCHR, 2008), 8, accessed April 11, 2018, https://kenyastockholm.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/pev-report-as-adopted-by-the-commission-for-release-on-7-august-20081.pdf.

  4. 4.

    Alex Vitale, “From Negotiated Management to Command and Control: How the New York Police Department Polices Protests,” Policing and Society 15, no. 3 (2006): 286.

  5. 5.

    Michael Rosie and Hugo Gorringe, “What a Difference a Death Makes: Protest, Policing and the Press at the G20,” Sociological Research Online 14, no. 5 (2009): 2, accessed April 28, 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46559303_What_a_Difference_a_Death_Makes_Protest_Policing_and_the_Press_at_the_G20.

  6. 6.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions A/HRC/17/28 (2011), 18.

  7. 7.

    John McCarthy, “The Policing of Transnational Protest by Donatella Della Porta, Abby Peterson, Herbert Reiter,” Acta Sociologica 50, no. 4 (2007): 441.

  8. 8.

    n. 6 above, 17.

  9. 9.

    Ibid.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    David Baker, “From Batons to Negotiated Management: The Transformation of Policing Industrial Disputes in Australia,” Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 1, no. 4 (2007): 391, accessed October 10, 2014, http://policing.oxfordjournals.org.

  12. 12.

    David Schweingruber, “Mob Sociology and Escalated Force: Sociology’s Contribution to Repressive Police Tactics,” The Sociological Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2000): 378.

  13. 13.

    Donatella Porta, Abby Peterson, and Herbert Reiter, “The Policing of Transnational Protest” cited in John McCarthy “The Policing of Transnational Protest by Donatella Della Porta, Abby Peterson, Herbert Reiter,” Acta Sociologica 50, no. 4 (2007): 441.

  14. 14.

    n. 4 above, 286.

  15. 15.

    n. 6 above, 17.

  16. 16.

    African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Danish Institute for Human Rights and African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum, “Police and Human Rights in Africa,” Newsletter on Police and Human Rights in Africa, no. 4 (2014): 3.

  17. 17.

    n. 4 above.

  18. 18.

    n. 16 above.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders A/62/225 (2007), 2.

  21. 21.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Maina Kiai A/HRC/20/27 (2012), 8.

  22. 22.

    OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly (2010), 15.

  23. 23.

    n. 22 above.

  24. 24.

    n. 20 above, 11.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    Ibid.

  27. 27.

    UN World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action A/CONF.157/24 (1993), para. 5.

  28. 28.

    n. 22 above, 75.

  29. 29.

    n. 22 above, 36.

  30. 30.

    House of Lords and House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights, Demonstrating Respect for Rights? A Human Rights Approach to Policing Protest (Seventh Report of Session 2008–2009), 56.

  31. 31.

    n. 22 above, 75–76.

  32. 32.

    UN Human Rights Council, Effective Measures and Best Practices to Ensure the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Peaceful Protests. Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/22/28 (2013), 8.

  33. 33.

    n. 4 above, 18.

  34. 34.

    n. 6 above, 19.

  35. 35.

    n. 33 above, 8.

  36. 36.

    Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Facilitating Peaceful Protests (Academy Briefing no. 5, 2014), 30.

  37. 37.

    n. 22 above, 18.

  38. 38.

    Hugo Gorringe, Clifford Stott, and Michael Rosie, “Dialogue Police, Decision Making, and the Management of Public Order During Protest Crowd Events,” Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 9 (2012): 111.

  39. 39.

    n. 21 above, 11.

  40. 40.

    n. 31 above, 48.

  41. 41.

    As above, 48.

  42. 42.

    n. 22 above, 77.

  43. 43.

    National Policing Improvement Agency, Association of Chief Police Officers and Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Manual of Guidance on Keeping the Peace (2010), 92.

  44. 44.

    n. 22 above, 78.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    n. 22 above, 70.

  47. 47.

    n. 7 above, 441.

  48. 48.

    n. 6 above, 18.

  49. 49.

    Cox v Louisiana 379 U.S. 559 (1965) as cited in Harrop Freeman, “The Right of Protest and Civil Disobedience,” Indiana Law Journal 41 (1966): 246.

  50. 50.

    U.S Const. amend. I.

  51. 51.

    n. 49 above, 245.

  52. 52.

    n. 4 above.

  53. 53.

    n. 49 above, 247.

  54. 54.

    Application no. 33268/03, ECHR, Judgment, 17 July 2008, para. 90.

  55. 55.

    “Kenya Bans Opposition Protests as Election Crisis Deepens,” The Guardian, October 12, 2017, accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/kenya-bans-opposition-protests-as-election-crisis-deepens.

  56. 56.

    Amnesty International, Policing Demonstrations in the European Union (2012), 6, accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/eu-police.pdf.

  57. 57.

    n. 56 above, 7.

  58. 58.

    David Pollard, Neil Parpworth, and David Hughes, Constitutional and Administrative Law: Text with Materials (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 631.

  59. 59.

    Public Order Act, Chapter 56 of the Laws of Kenya.

  60. 60.

    National Police Service Act No. 11A of 2011.

  61. 61.

    n. 59 above, section 2.

  62. 62.

    n. 59 above, section 2.

  63. 63.

    n. 59 above, section 5(1).

  64. 64.

    n. 59 above, section 5(2).

  65. 65.

    n. 59 above, section 5(3).

  66. 66.

    n. 60 above, section 54(1)(b).

  67. 67.

    Nation Team, “Matiang’i Ban on Demos Sparks Storm,” Daily Nation, October 13, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Matiang-i-ban-on-demos-sparks-storm-/3126390-4137380-format-xhtml-9q2qwaz/index.html.

  68. 68.

    Constitution of Kenya, 2010, art. 37.

  69. 69.

    Vincent Nmehielle, The African Human Rights System: Its Laws, Practice and Institutions (Martinus: Nijhoff Publishers, 2001), 113 cited in Morris Mbondenyi and John Ambani, The New Constitutional Law of Kenya: Principles, Government & Human Rights (LawAfrica, 2012), 182.

  70. 70.

    Ferdinand Ndung’u Waititu & 4 others vs the Attorney General & 9 others, Petition No. 169 of 2016, accessed April 28, 2018, http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/122806/.

  71. 71.

    n. 32 above, 6.

  72. 72.

    n. 22 above, 15.

  73. 73.

    n. 68 above, art. 24.

  74. 74.

    n. 33 above.

  75. 75.

    Kivutha Kibwana, Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in Kenya (1990) cited in Chris M. Peter, “Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in Kenya—A Review Essay,” African Journal of International and Comparative Law 3 (1991): 79.

  76. 76.

    Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi is the second president of Kenya who served an unbroken 24-year term in office from 1978 to 2002.

  77. 77.

    Njuguna Ng’ethe et al., Democracy Report for Jamhuri ya Kenya (IDEA & SAREAT, 2000), 17, accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.idea.int/publications/sod/upload/Kenya.pdf.

  78. 78.

    The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, NGO Law Monitor: Kenya, accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.icnl.org/research/monitor/kenya.html.

  79. 79.

    Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2017/18The State of the World’s Human Rights (London: Amnesty International Limited, 2018), 19, accessed April 12, 2018 https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL1067002018ENGLISH.PDF.

  80. 80.

    n. 79 above, 223.

  81. 81.

    Human Rights Watch, “They Were Men in Uniform” Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Kenya’s 2017 Elections (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017), 14, accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/kenya1217_web.pdf.

  82. 82.

    HRC is the treaty body that oversees the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

  83. 83.

    UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders A/62/225 (2007), 7.

  84. 84.

    International Network of Civil Liberties Organisations, Take Back the Streets: Repression and Criminalization of Protest Around the World (2013), 39.

  85. 85.

    As above.

  86. 86.

    n. 84 above.

  87. 87.

    “Kimaiyo Bans Political Rallies, Reverses Ban to Allow CORD Rally,” allafrica, May 28, 2014, accessed April 28, 2018, http://allafrica.com/stories/201405290256.html.

  88. 88.

    As above.

  89. 89.

    Cyrus Ombati and Protus Onyango, “Controversy Over Matiang’i Ban on Demos in CBD,” The Standard, October 13, 2017, accessed April 28, 2018.

  90. 90.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Maina Kiai A/HRC/23/39 (2013), 17.

  91. 91.

    Wilson Olal & 5 others v Attorney General & 2 others, Constitutional Petition No. 323 of 2014. Accessed April 12, 2018, http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/137643/.

  92. 92.

    Section 5(10) of the Act.

  93. 93.

    Michael O’Flaherty, “Effective Measures and Best Practices to Ensure the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Peaceful Protests: A Background Paper,” 10, accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/AssemblyAssociation/Pages/Seminar2December2013.aspx.

  94. 94.

    OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly (2010), 69.

  95. 95.

    As above.

  96. 96.

    Bukta and others v Hungary European Court of Human Rights, 17 July 2007, para. 36 cited in Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Facilitating Peaceful Protests (Academy Briefing no. 5, 2014), 13.

  97. 97.

    n. 96 above, 17.

  98. 98.

    n. 37 above, 10.

  99. 99.

    n. 21 above, 9.

  100. 100.

    n. 96 above.

  101. 101.

    Phumeza Mlungwana & 9 Others vs The State & Minister of Police, Case No. A431/15, 24 January 2018.

  102. 102.

    n. 59 above, section 5(8)(b).

  103. 103.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions A/HRC/17/28 (2011), 5–6.

  104. 104.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions’ A/HRC/17/28 (2011), 15.

  105. 105.

    Human Rights Watch, Multipartyism Betrayed in Kenya: Continuing Rural Violence and Restrictions on Freedom of Speech and Assembly (1994), 22.

  106. 106.

    n. 105 above, 42.

  107. 107.

    Ibid.

  108. 108.

    n. 104 above, 15.

  109. 109.

    Ibid.

  110. 110.

    n. 37 above, 7.

  111. 111.

    Ibid.

  112. 112.

    Ibid.

  113. 113.

    n. 77 above, 8.

  114. 114.

    n. 104 above, 7.

  115. 115.

    Human Rights Watch, Kenya: End Police Use of Excessive Force (2014), accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/01/12/kenya-end-police-use-excessive-force.

  116. 116.

    n. 3 above.

  117. 117.

    n. 105 above, 38.

  118. 118.

    n. 84 above, 39.

  119. 119.

    n. 104 above, 17.

  120. 120.

    Ibid.

  121. 121.

    n. 94 above, 75.

  122. 122.

    Ibid.

  123. 123.

    n. 94 above, 73.

  124. 124.

    Frans Viljoen, International Human Rights Law in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 30.

  125. 125.

    African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Guidelines on Freedom of Association and Assembly in Africa, accessed April 28, 2018, http://www.achpr.org/files/instruments/freedom-association-assembly/guidelines_on_freedom_of_association_and_assembly_in_africa_eng.pdf.

  126. 126.

    African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Guidelines for the Policing of Assemblies by Law Enforcement Officials in Africa, accessed April 28, 2018, http://www.achpr.org/files/instruments/policing-assemblies-in-africa/achpr_guidelines_on_policing_assemblies_eng_fre_por_ara.pdf.

  127. 127.

    n. 125 above, clause 70.

  128. 128.

    See n. 71 above.

  129. 129.

    n. 125 above, clause 71.

  130. 130.

    n. 125 above, clause 72 and 75.

  131. 131.

    n. 126 above, clause 13.1.

  132. 132.

    n. 126 above, clause 20.1.

  133. 133.

    n. 126 above, clause 21.1.2.

  134. 134.

    n. 94 above, 81.

  135. 135.

    WorldatWork, Public Policy Tool Kit: The Difference Between Legislation and Regulation, accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=33051.

  136. 136.

    n. 104 above, 14.

  137. 137.

    n. 94 above, 81.

  138. 138.

    Ibid.

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Kamunyu, M., Murimi, E.K. (2020). Advancing the Right to Demonstrate in Kenya Through Negotiated Management. In: Addaney, M., Nyarko, M.G., Boshoff, E. (eds) Governance, Human Rights, and Political Transformation in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27049-0_8

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