Despite the urgings of the president and prime minister, the Kenyan parliament has failed to pass legislation which would set up tribunals to try those suspected of crimes against humanity following the disputed elections just over a year ago. The trials are now expected to be conducted by the International Criminal Court. Apparently, a substantial number of members of parliament believed that local tribunals would not be impartial and would not to anything to challenge the “culture of immunity” which allows high-ranking officials to get away with anything.
An unfortunate lack of public confidence in the Kenyan judicial system is reflected in some newspaper headlines from the past couple of months: Disgraced judge goes for top ECK job; Ringera admits failure over Anglo Leasing (major corruption cases ended by court injunction); Judge attempted murder case starts (a judge is accused of road-rage murder attempt); Goldenberg cases against Kotut halted (court injunction preventing corruption trial); Judge orders probe into alteration of court files (court files are frequently tampered with).
While it is argued that the legislation was defeated in order to ensure that the cases are tried impartially by the International Criminal Court, a number of those who voted against the legislation are allied with members of parliament who are likely to be charged. Perhaps a number of votes were placed against the legislation in an effort to perpetuate rather than remove the culture of immunity, safe in the knowledge that hardly anyone has been called to account for the Rwandan genocide, and ICC proceedings will take a long time, if they occur at all.