Hon. Justice Enock Chacha Mwita; CB Madan Award Recipient, 2025
by admin on | 2025-12-04 08:46:24 Last Updated by admin on 2025-12-06 15:55:49
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Introduction
There are moments in Kenya when the Constitution feels less like a living document and more like a border drawn between the ordinary citizen and the state. It is at this border that Justice Enock Chacha Mwita has kept his long vigil. His courtroom has become a place where law restrains political appetites. Citizens who may never know his name find their lives changed by the steadiness of his thought. He makes this clear in his judgments, especially on the proposed Haiti deployment or at the heart of abductions, when he famously said, “There is no way a Kenyan can vanish from this world without a trace. It’s not humanly 6 DECEMBER 2025 possible. I am not interested in drama. Produce Ndiang’ui Kinyagia whether dead or alive.” He emphasised that sovereignty is not a passport for the Executive to rule with impunity but a discipline imposed by the Constitution. Justice Mwita’s jurisprudence illustrates why Kenya still needs those who guard the Constitution’s pulse, especially at this time when there is eroding public trust and democratic doubt. Justice Mwita joined the Bench in 2014 and served at Kajiado High Court, Kakamega High Court, and Milimani High Court (Commercial Division). He then went to serve as a Presiding Judge at Milimani High Court in the Constitutional and Human Rights Division. His early legal training and encounters developed into a judicial philosophy that treats constitutional limits as the architecture of democratic legitimacy. His jurisprudence demonstrates a commitment to the separation of powers. He has insisted that Parliament and the Executive remain within the boundaries set by law. His approach has embodied the idea that the court is a guardian of the constitution and not a passive spectator. In a system where it is more beneficial to bend the law toward political convenience, Justice Mwita’s courage is rare. Justice Mwita has demonstrated his brilliance in his pronouncements on matters of human rights, security, and enforced disappearances. Justice Mwita had met families who lived with the grief of a loved one who vanished into the machinery of the state. In his decisions, one hears the moral clarity that arises from listening to such stories. He stated a simple yet weighty principle, that no claim of national security can justify erasing a human being from the protection of the law. This is the logic behind Article 19 of the Constitution, which states that rights are inherent and inalienable. It was not theatrical defiance, as many of his critics opined. Justice Mwita opines that the procedures used to reach outcomes are as important as the outcomes themselves. In decisions across election law, administrative justice, access to information, and equality, he stresses that procedural fairness is a constitutional value. He has stressed the need for realistic timelines, public participation, and transparent administration. Justice Mwita has also strengthened what has come to be described as Kenya’s culture of justification. In his courtroom, the state must show its homework.
