Access to justice, impunity and legal pluralism in Kenya

Abstract

The acknowledgement that non-access to justice and impunity are widespread in Kenya is an important motive behind the present judicial reforms undertaken in Kenya. Building upon and further developing Viñuales’ distinction between functional and structural aspects of impunity, this article discusses cases of urban mob-justice and conflicts over land in the Southern Rift Valley. It argues that in Kenya’s situation of empirical legal pluralism reforms of the judiciary aimed at facilitating access to justice are suitable to address cases of functional impunity if such reforms manage to restore the trust of people in state institutions but that they are likely to fail where the reasons for impunity and its underlying conflicts are structural in nature.