GENDER PARITY AND THE DYNAMICS OF ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN KENYA

**Maina Jan

Gender parity is still perceived as an illusion across Africa and most particularly Kenya in all
spheres of development and sustainability. The Kenyan constitution on principles of governance
incorporate quintessential principles which are indispensable to equality and rule of law amid
other critical principles that are a great milestone in enhancing justice and development for all
citizens. Historical injustices in Kenya on access to justice from a gender perspective owing to
culture and customary rules, is what has characterized Kenyas judicial system. Key emphasis is
on succession rules that are retrogressive and patriarchal in nature. International instruments like
CEDAW and Maputo Protocol have moderately ameliorated the prevalent historical injustices.

With regard to the Equality policy 2016, gender equality is yet to be realized in Kenya due to
vulnerability and certain extents of male hegemony in critical realms of development like
political participation and economic sustainability. Equality should be construed within the
parameters of human rights and most exigently human dignity. This denotes the worthiness and
respect that should be accorded to all human beings regardless of any indifferences that may
ensue.

Access to justice has also been affiliated to inaccessibility and inequalities within all spheres.
The right to equality and non-discrimination has been prone to infringement from a minorities
perspective. Women and children are more susceptible to violation of access to justice owing to
financial constraints in seeking legal services amid other major setbacks such as unfriendly
investigation strategies and frameworks for critical cases like rape, domestic violence and
defilement. There is dire need to ameliorate the current situation on the right to access justice in
a quest to put meaning and essence to human dignity in Kenya. This should go a long way in
redefining the rudiments of human dignity within the Kenyan parameters in its sui generis nature
and legislative framework.

Although the Kenyas legislative framework has recently taken a different stance in ensuring
justice for women and children in enactment of laws such as The Domestic Violence Act 2015
inter alia; there is urgent need for putting forth practical institutional frameworks that are friendly
and ones that seek to safeguard their interests. Laws do not suffice alone if the ambience which
those laws are meant to be implemented does not fully embrace such initiatives in providing
decisive solutions to the injustices experienced.

The best gift a nation can give for its citizens is to ensure equal access to justice from an equality
perspective appreciating the nature of their discrepancies and experienced historical injustices.
The respect for human dignity supersedes any grounds for denying justice in embracing the
noble cause of protecting human rights in any jurisdiction.