The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has protested the delayed resettlement of the Ogiek community five years after a landmark ruling on their eviction from the Mau Forest.
The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights based in Tanzania ruled in May 2017 that the Kenyan government had violated the rights of the Ogiek people by repeatedly evicting them from their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest.
KNCHR welcomes judgement
KNCHR Chairperson, Roseline Odede, on Thursday, July 8, 2022, welcomed a recent judgement on reparations by the court.
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She said that the judgment affirms the rights of Ogiek to their ancestral land, after a protracted legal battle, provoked by the issuance of an eviction notice against the indigenous community in 2009.
“This progressive judgment of the continental human rights Court is not only the first one by the Court on the rights of indigenous people but also an inspiration and a beacon of hope to the Ogiek community and other indigenous people in Kenya and Africa at large,” Odede said in a statement.
She said that KNCHR is also optimistic that the implementation of the judgment of the African Court will significantly and sustainably address the plight of indigenous people in the country.
The Commission urged the Government, in line with its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, to give effect to the judgment.
Much as the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights gave its decision on the Endorois case, another Indigenous Community in Kenya, in 2010, she regretted that the decision has still not been fully implemented, ten years on.
“The Government welcomed and joined the community in celebrating the decision. More than 10 years after that celebration, the decision has not been fully implemented,” she said.
The Commission called for genuine and meaningful consultation in good faith with the Ogiek, with a view to ensuring effective and sustainable implementation of the judgment and restoring their rights as an indigenous community, in line with the national values and principles of governance under Article 10 of the Constitution.
In its judgment on merits delivered on May 26, 2017, the regional human rights court confirmed violation of the rights to the freedom of conscience and religion, the right to culture, ancestral land rights, the right of the Ogiek to dispose of freely their wealth and natural resources and the right to development among others as provided for and guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
Odede said that after judgment on merits was delivered, the Government appointed a Multi-Agency Taskforce to advise on the implementation of the court’s decision.
After a series of public hearings and receipt of memoranda from different communities and State as well as non-State agencies, the task force compiled its final report that was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in 2020.
The report of the Taskforce, however, has never been made public to date.
Five years after the Judgment on merits, the regional Human Rights Court delivered its judgment on reparations last month.
She said the court observed that the violations it had identified and confirmed in its 2017 judgment remained unaddressed.
The court ordered among others that the Government pays compensation to the Ogiek community an amount of Ksh57.9 million in material damages and KSh100 million in moral damages.
Odede said that the Government was also ordered to take all necessary measures, in consultation with the Ogiek and its representatives, to identify, delimit and grant collective land title to the community and, by law, assure them of unhindered use and enjoyment of their land.
The court also directed that it will conduct a hearing on the status of implementation of the orders made in its judgment on a date to be appointed by the court within 12 months of the judgment.
