Carry your cross, Wako tells Britain
Kenya AG Amos Wako (left) wrote to British Foreign Secretary William Hague (right) distancing the government from any responsibility. Photos/FILE
Kenya through the Attorney General has sought to evade any possible judgement of liability for atrocities suffered by freedom fighters during the independence struggle.
Three days to the hearing of an application by the British Government, seeking to shift blame to Kenya, AG Amos Wako wrote to Foreign Secretary William Hague distancing the government from any responsibility.
He told London to withdraw pleadings it allegedly made in court that the government had inherited liabilities of the Colonial Administration through a 1964 constitutional amendment.
In a letter dates March 31 the Nation saw, Mr Wako says: “It is plainly inappropriate and contrary to the principle of international comity for the United Kingdom to ask its national courts to find that the Republic of Kenya is liable for any civil wrongs, including in particular the misdemeanours of the Colonial Administration.”
The letter was a reply to the British Government’s application for a summary judgement in a case filed against the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Ndiku Mutua and others.
In the June 2009 application, the AG says, FCO argued that Section 26 of the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Act of 1964 “has the effect of transferring all rights and liabilities of the British Colonial administration to the Republic of Kenya.”
Mr Wako said Kenya fully backed the claim by Kenyans and had “publicly denied any notion that responsibility for any acts and atrocities committed by the British Colonial Administration during the Emergency was inherited by the Republic of Kenya,” adding, “It does so hereby again.”
The letter was written ahead of hearing of the application that was to be heard yesterday. Mr Wako said the FCO had sought to strike out or obtain a summary judgement over the claim taken before a London court by former Mau Mau fighters.
He asked the FCO to produce the letter in court. Kenya High Commissioner in Britain Ephraim Ngare presented the letter to Mr Hague last Friday.
The Mau Mau claim was filed against the FCO before the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice.
But the British government filed an application to strike out the claim on grounds it was not liable for the actions and omissions of the British Colonial Administration, arguing, the colonial Government passed on legal liability to independent Kenya.
