Over the past six months, I had the privilege of interning with Validity. During this time, I worked alongside a dedicated team relentlessly committed to ensuring that the rights and freedoms of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities are respected and upheld across the Europe and Africa region, with a particular focus on Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. Before joining Validity as an intern, I had been a legal practitioner for about nine years across different sectors, but I had no prior experience championing disability rights, and even less experience with human rights reporting and monitoring at regional and international bodies.
My time at Validity was deeply rewarding. Under the guidance of my supervisor, Jennifer Wairimu, I developed a case brief on Macharia v I&M Bank Limited to inform post-litigation advocacy among stakeholders. This landmark decision saw a Kenyan court hold that the respondent bank had violated Mr. Macharia’s right to non-discrimination on the basis of disability, his right to legal capacity, and his right to accessibility, ordering that he be compensated KES 2,500,000. The court further directed financial service providers to consider reasonable accommodation and universal design in their products and services to cater to persons with disabilities. In a well-reasoned judgment, the court underscored the importance of accessibility and inclusion, noting that financial institutions have a duty to make their services accessible to all members of society, including persons with disabilities, without imposing undue burdens. This case was an eye-opener for me, particularly on matters relating to universal design, reasonable accommodation, legal capacity, and the distinction between supported decision-making and substituted decision-making.
I contributed to the organization’s regional work by preparing shadow reports, research questions, and submissions that feed into the state reporting cycles of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
I had the opportunity to also develop a compendium of court decisions following the decision in Isaac Ndegwa Kimaru & 17 Others v Attorney General, which the Constitutional and Human Rights Court at Nairobi declared that the provisions of section 162 – 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code on detention ‘at the pleasure of the President’ were unconstitutional for placing the sentencing discretion in the executive rather than the court. Following this decision there were several decisions churned by the High Court and Court of Appeal with deferring outcomes revealing that judicial opinion is divided on the constitutionality of the provisions of section 162 – 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code. This compendium highlighted the lack of consensus among courts regarding the constitutionality of detention ‘at the pleasure of the President’ and this reveals that more advocacy work and potentially strategic litigation needs to be done to avoid the lack of consistency and predictability on judicial precedent on this issue, particularly for prisoners with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities.