The Role of the Commission on Administrative Justice in Protecting the Constitutional Right to Fair Administrative Action in Kenya
Abstract
This study investigates the role of the Commission on Administrative Justice (hereinafter stated
to as the CAJ) in protecting the right to fair administrative act under the 2010 Kenyan Constitution.
It documents the successes, challenges, and opportunities that the CAJ has encountered in realizing
its constitutional mandate. The study argues that although the CAJ has made some strides in
guarding the right to fair administrative action, it nevertheless continues to face numerous
challenges, which hinder it from fulfilling its mandate. As a result, this inadequacy of the
Commission on Administrative Justice Act 2011 and the Fair Administrative Action Act, No. 4 of
2015 has restrained the operations of the CAJ hence the failure in promotion of fair administrative
action in Kenya as defined for under the Constitution of Kenya 2010. It demonstrates that although
some progress has been made, the absence of a policy on enforcement of decisions, political
bureaucracy and impunity, limited accessibility, and lack of awareness of the public on the roles
of the existence and mandate of the CAJ are some of the critical challenges that continue to greatly
undermine the CAJ from fulfilling its mandate.
Although several scholars have written on the CAJ, to the best of my knowledge, no other study
has evaluated the extent to which the CAJ has fulfilled its constitutional mandate of regulating
administrative power in Kenya. This study also seeks to seal this gap by exposing the limitations
of the CAJ caused by legislative gaps such as lack of enforcement mechanisms and different
interpretations that prevent it from enforcing, realizing and enhancing the right to a fair
administrative action. With a sole purpose of contributing to existing literature, this study in a bid
to take away the execution role by parliament, among other recommendations, recommend the
amendment of Section 8 and 54 of the Commission on Administrative Action Act, 2011 to assist
the CAJ fulfil its desired mandate as envisaged in the 2010 Kenyan Constitution.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- School of Law [291]
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