WILLY MUTUNGA
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Kenya
Former Chief Justice of the Kenyan Supreme Court and Commonwealth Secretary-General's Special Envoy to the Maldives
“To quote the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu: ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step’. I can’t even say that we have achieved the first step, but the constitution itself is a great leap forward.”
– Willy Mutunga
Committed and dedicated to changing the judicial system for the better, Mutunga was Kenya’s Chief Justice from 2011-2016. Mutunga’s legacy is characterized by his dedication to democratic values and human rights.
For this reason, he was also appointed Secretary General of the Commonwealth Special Envoy to the Maldives in 2016. As Special Envoy, he tried to bring the political leadership there together, and to aid in the process of constitutional and political transition. His overriding mandate was to ‘support a sustainable political dialogue process leading to a stronger climate of pluralism and inclusive elections in 2018, and to encourage the strengthening of democratic institutions and culture in Maldives’.
Mutunga is also a distinguished scholar-in-residence at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice (Fordham Law School, New York City).
Willy Mutunga played a pivotal role in the constitution-making processes in Kenya in the early 90s.
He worked on the implementation of the progressive 2010 Kenyan Constitution, which he helped draft, as head of the Judiciary and President of the apex court in the country.
He urged for the development of indigenous progressive jurisprudence that is not insular and does not pay unthinking deference to other jurisdictions, regardless of how prominent they may be.
Under his tenure as Chief Justice from 2011 to 2016, Mutunga sought to lay permanent and indestructible foundations for the transformed judiciary.
Under the blueprint of the Kenyan Judiciary Transformation Framework 2012 – 2016, he achieved impressive progress in bringing the justice system closer to ordinary people. Not only did he succeed in humanizing the Kenyan judicial systems, he also reduced the number of case backlogs significantly. He aimed to use technology as an enabler of justice, as well as to bring about equitable and transparent systems of recruitment, promotions and training. He supported and strengthened the Judicial Training Institute as a nucleus for juristic training and an institution of higher learning.
Mutunga is well-known for his fight against corruption in the judiciary and in Kenya as a whole. He spearheaded independent and principled dialogue, consultation and collaboration between the three arms of government.
Mutunga announced in 2015 that he would retire early from his office to give the country sufficient time to recruit a new Chief Justice.
This was to avoid the crisis that might arise if the August 2017 General Election was held without a substantive holder of the Office of Chief Justice. Mutunga’s early retirement is a testament to his strong leadership qualities and ability to think ahead.
Before his time in office, Mutunga acted as the Secretary-General of the University Staff Union at the University of Nairobi for three years. His work in the pro-democracy movements, notably with the pro-democracy Twelfth of December Movement in Kenya, made him a target of Moi’s Kenyan African National Union (KANU) party and he was detained without trial, from 1982 to 1983.
He was also dismissed from the University of Nairobi. However, detention did not silence him. He continued to denounce undemocratic governance and to protest against human rights violations in his country.
On an international level, Mutunga worked at the board of Rights and Democracy in Montreal, Canada, participated in the World Social Forum and consistently interrogated liberation paradigms in the age of neoliberalism
Source :
Willy Mutunga - Justice Leadership
Ex-CJ Mutunga Opens Up on Nearly Abandoning Law
- Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga addresses students during a public lecture on January 29, 2020, at the Kenya Methodist University.
FILE
- Former Chief justice Willy Mutunga (2011-2016) spoke of his regrets when he got an opportunity to study law at the University of Dar Es Salaam.
In an interview with Quazini Magazine in December 2019, the former CJ revealed that when he got the opportunity to study law, what he met in the classroom was way below his expectations.
Mutunga told the publication that his journey into law was kickstarted by his teachers in the 1960s who convinced him that law was a course set aside for only smart people, a matter that created high expectations in him.
"They talked about opportunities that lay ahead in terms of practice and judiciary. There weren’t many African lawyers and competition was not stiff. Twenty students were selected from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda respectively. I applied and got in," he recounted.
Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga during a court seating while he served as the Chief Justice.
FILE
When he got into law school, however, he discovered that what he had expected law studies to be was not exactly what he encountered in the classrooms.
"At first, I regretted taking law, it is an unthinking profession. Lawyers call themselves learned, but we are very narrow in our discipline. We tend to shun other subjects that would enhance our knowledge.
"If you are a lawyer, you need to have knowledge of economics, history, biology, science, politics, psychology, theology, philosophy, sociology…everything we deal with on a day to day basis. Everything is not ruled by rules," Mutunga opined.
He added that in his opinion, all those subjects that were being ignored would come in handy in when the lawyers had to deal with their clients caught up in various scenarios, but the lawyers were shunning them.
"When you are dealing with people who have lost their land, are fighting over succession or have been hit by vehicles, how can you be effective that if you have no knowledge of counselling? Or empathy?" he posed.
Mutunga opined that law at that level was structured and bound, with little or no wiggling room for those studying and practicing it thus limiting the profession.
His perception of the course, however, changed when he got to the Masters level when he came into more contexts under which law was taught and practised.
"It was only after I did my masters that I realized I hadn’t made a big mistake after all. Because at this point, law was taught in the economic, historical, cultural and social contexts. I was now able to catch up and broaden my knowledge," he recounted.
Ex-Chief Justice Willy Mutunga (left) with current Chief Justice David Maraga during the review of the "Sustaining Judiciary Transformation, 2017-21" blueprint on January 31, 2017.
TWITTER
For this reason, Mutunga stated that his practice in law has been seen more as activism, where he interprets it as broad and with a realization that it can be used for good and evil, as opposed to sticking to the rules learned in class.
The former CJ added that he regrets not studying what he was good at before getting into law, which he told the reporter was history and literature . Source Ex-CJ Mutunga Opens Up on Nearly Abandoning Law