Disobeying court orders surest recipe for anarchy

NAIROBI: Of late, there have been a plethora of cases of litigants—even those in authority—disobeying courts orders. In one of the incidents, an MP attempted to evict a Nanyuki farmer from a 20-acre parcel his family had occupied for 21 years in blatant disregard of an existing court order. Police were told that the politicians hired youths who blocked the farmer from accessing his land, and at one point the farmer even contemplated using a helicopter to get to his property which was partly damaged, particularly the horse stables.

This a few days after a tenant complained in a letter to the President published in a local newspaper advert which stated that Administration Police officers and a group of youths forcibly evicted him for a shop he had been renting for 35 years and attempted to install a new tenant to the premises even though a court caveat forbade it. In the process, the trader noted, retail goods with Sh20 million, were destroyed.

It is tempting to rationalise this contravention of the rule of law by arguing that even at the highest levels of governance, court orders have been ignored willy-nilly and no action was taken. Such a view, however, is premised on a fallacy. This is because commission of a wrong should be no justification for opening the floodgates of anarchy.

Decisive action needs to be taken against those who disobey court orders if we are to avoid sliding into the law of the jungle where everyone does as they please. Kenyans must understand that court orders are the safety pin that holds us together as a society. They must understand that the reason our day-to-day frictions and differences do not snowball into anarchy is that aggrieved parties have the option of seeking recourse from the courts. The latter, as an arbiter drawing its authority from the Constitution and case laws, obviates the need to sort out squabbles through violence and other crude means.

A society that does not obey its courts runs the risk of descending into the Hobbesian state of nature, where there is always war by all against all. After Kenyans endorsed the 2010 Constitution, which they agreed aptly captured their hopes and aspirations as a nation, the only way they can be governed by that statement born of their sovereignty is by letting the courts do their job of interpreting the law.

The need to lead from the front is more imperative for those who occupy positions of power. As a fragile country slowly pulling itself from the brink of anarchy, the need to foster co-existence among citizens should be on top the list of leaders’ priorities. Citizens can only co-exist harmoniously when they have confidence that they do not have to resort to violence to resolve conflicts.

It is unfortunate the even in the highest echelons of governance, both in the Executive and legislative arms of the Government, court orders have been brushed aside on crucial matters. And while the argument by legislators at both the national and county levels has been that the courts tend to interfere with their law-making role, that argument flies in the face of the need to forge a united orderly nation.

True, the three arms of government must act independently, but that independence must be responsibly used and in a manner that avoids animosity. It is unfortunate, therefore, that parliamentary and Executive independence has been used to trample court orders underfoot instead of fostering complementarity.

While the issue of who between the Judiciary and the other arms of Government has been abusing their independence may sound academic, that is definitely not the case for disputes where a litigant obtains court orders barring another from interfering with disputed property and then the party so restrained goes ahead to hire unruly youths to destroy property and evict the litigants. This is dangerous as it pushes us closer to edge of jungle existence where—as Thomas Hobbes once put it — life is solitary, nasty, brutish and short.