NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 18 — The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has teamed up with a league of human rights defenders to investigate and mount legal proceedings against perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
The alliance will seek court rulings compelling government to compensate survivors and victim’s families.
The coalition brings together the International Justice Mission, Missing Voices, Amnesty International, and the Social Justice Working Group who will collaborate with the Mothers of Victims and Survivors Network — a community-based organization that seeks to give a voice to the mothers and the survivors of police brutality.
The LSK President Eric Theuri told journalists Monday that the new cooperation is a key milestone in the fight against police killings and the spectra of enforced disappearances.
“We are going to look into documented cases and undocumented cases and initiate a national campaign against extrajudicial killings and we are also as a society going to get together a team of lawyers who are going to explore the possibility of filing a case before the courts to seek for compensation for those survivors and for the mothers who are not able to tell where their children are,” he said.
Theuri said that the initiative will give a voice to survivors of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances who have in the past lacked a voice to air their grievances.
He noted that the country has witnessed, over a period of time, an increase in cases of extrajudicial killings and a significant rise in enforced disappearances, especially from informal settlements which he blamed on security agencies.
The LSK president said that the Society will also cascade the action plan to its eight regional branches spread across the country to give the widest possible coverage and legal representation to those who need it.
“We also intend to bring the issues of extrajudicial cases before the case and seek that the courts will expedite that case so that we can be able to test the limits of liability and to also hold those police officers whom we have information that they are involved in extrajudicial killings and perpetrate enforced disappearances and to hold them to account,” he said.
He appealed to the security agencies and those in charge of the security docket in the country to follow due process while handling criminal cases.
Theuri stated that enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings have no place in a democratic society and in a society governed by the law.
“For those that have developed this habit and to those that are used to perpetuate extrajudicial killings we have a message for you that your methods make you, members of your family, and the entire country unsafe, because the only refuge we can have, is to seek refuge in law due process,” he added.
He pointed out that heavy-handed treatment of Kenyans and criminal suspects by state organs poses a great threat to the security of the country.
Theuri went further to say that the State should offer support to those in the informal settlements in a bid to improve their social and economic conditions as opposed to killing and maiming them.
He added the coalition will get the full support of the LSK and the lawyers across the country noting that they recognize that they represent most of the victims that are likely to face police brutality.
Theuri said that extrajudicial killings is a threat to the legal profession singling out a past incident when one of the lawyers was abducted for representing a terror suspect.
“LSK has a duty and responsibility to speak against extra judicial killings and take robust action to ensure that those who perpetuate this heinous crime are brought to book.”
We hope that those in the security forces who have developed this habit will from today cease and desist from undertaking extrajudicial killings but if they don’t, they will be met with the full force of the law,” Theuri warned.
He further pledged to collaborate with the Independent Policing Oversight Authority to ensure victims of police brutality get justice.
