High Court Rules Parliament Lacks Power to Set Timelines for NLC on Historical Land Injustices
“It was not for Parliament to limit the period. This is to undermine the mandate of a constitutional body when the Constitution itself does not set timelines,” the court held.
File image of a Judge's gavel.
By Ruth Sang
In a landmark ruling, the High Court has declared that Parliament has no power to set deadlines for the operations of the National Land Commission while performing its constitutional mandate of inquiring into and recommending remedies concerning historical land injustices. The ruling follows a petition by Busia Senator and human rights activist Okiya Omtatah challenging amendments proposed to limit the timelines of the Commission’s operations.
What the disputed amendment was trying to achieve—the National Land Commission (Amendment)—restricted the duration within which the NLC could conclude its determinations to one year and set a three-year window for the implementation of remedies. Omtatah argued that these time limits were not only unrealistic but were also an attempt to bar many victims from seeking justice, more so given the Commission’s funding constraints and the huge backlog of cases running into decades.
In the ruling, the court agreed with the petitioner that Parliament had overstepped its mandate. The bench observed that the Constitution does not impose deadlines on NLC in the discharge of its functions, even on the determination of historical land injustice claims. Therefore, by setting rigid deadlines, Parliament was tampering with a constitutionally established institution and undermining its independence.
“It was not for Parliament to limit the period. This is to undermine the mandate of a constitutional body when the Constitution itself does not set timelines,” the court held. Justice Chacha Mwita, who delivered the verdict, emphasised that the Constitution must be interpreted in a manner that makes its various provisions work together coherently and complement one another, without nullifying or weakening one another. He further underscored that constitutional mandates cannot be limited by ordinary legislation.
The judge further emphasised that Section 14(9) of the impugned Amendment Act was unconstitutional in its attempt to put limits on functions which the Constitution purposefully left open-ended. He also made it known that s 15, which provided for redressing past land injustices occurring from 1895 and continuing until August 2010, did not put any time limit on the resolution of such disputes.
The court clarified that under Article 67(e), Parliament did not have the power to make laws that expanded or restricted the constitutional powers of the NLC in any way. In other words, any effort to confine the admission, investigation, or determination of historical land injustice claims to a specified period—such as five years or any other period—was a contravention of the Constitution. The High Court therefore held that the Amendment Act was unconstitutional insofar as it purported to limit the NLC’s mandate. This judgment reiterates the Commission’s unfettered powers to redress historical land grievances and protects the victims against being shut out by statutory time bars.
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