Court of Appeal Judge Joel Ngugi named 2022 Jurist of the Year

Court of Appeal Judge Prof Joel Ngugi is the 2022 Jurist of the Year award winner.

Judge Ngugi, who was crowned the winner on Friday in Nairobi, said he was shocked when he was informed of the nomination.

"If my namesake, Mumbi Ngugi, had not already received this award in 2013, I would have assumed it was an error: that your Nominations Committee actually meant her - and that they made a mistake and called me instead."

Ngugi dedicated the award to the many faceless Kenyans who fight every day for the Constitution and constitutionalism. He described himself as a mere proxy for the ordinary Kenyan who stood up for the constitution.

He went on: "This is not my award; it is an award for the ordinary Kenyan who defends the constitution and lives its ideals every day without even mentioning it by name. I'm just their go-between."

The judge said the constitution is a powerful emancipatory tool for all Kenyans to preserve their dignity, promote social justice, and realise their full human potential.

"That is why there is no greater fulfilment; no greater honour than waking up every morning and going to work when my job description includes the interpretation, giving meaning to, and enforcing this radical human rights and governance charter," he said.

Ngugi said even as Kenyans celebrate the constitution's longevity, dark clouds loom, threatening the polity and social fabric.

The failure to set up credible mechanisms for sharing resources and prosperity as a country, he says, is the single greatest threat to Kenya's constitutional democracy, one anticipated by our Constitution but not prioritised by the political, economic, and legal elites charged with its implementation.

Judge Ngugi has made news for making critical decisions. He was one of six judges who former President Uhuru Kenyatta refused to appoint to the Court of Appeal.

According to a statement issued by State House, Uhuru had rejected the nominations of High Court Judges Ngugi, George Odunga, Aggrey Muchelule, and Weldon Korir to the Appellate Court "for failing to meet the required threshold."

His morale was not harmed by Uhuru's failure to appoint him, and he continued with his daily duties. He had to have known the best time was approaching.

President William Ruto later appointed the six in September, and they were sworn in.

WHO IS THIS MAN PROF NGUGI?

Ngugi was appointed to the High Court of Kenya in September 2011 and served as Presiding Judge at Nakuru High Court and Chair of the National Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Alternative Justice Systems Policy.

He previously worked as a judge in Machakos and as the Presiding Judge at the Kiambu High Court. He headed the Judiciary Transformation Secretariat, which was in charge of coordinating the implementation of the Judiciary Transformation Framework 2012-2016.

The blueprint guided comprehensive reforms in Kenya's judiciary following the promulgation of the new constitution in 2010 under Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

He was also the Director of the Kenya Judiciary Training Institute from 2012 to 2016, during a period of rapid growth at the JTI.

Among his many accomplishments at the JTI and JTF Secretariat was leading judiciary transformation culture change workshops that were attended by all judiciary employees across the republic.

He institutionalised the idea that continuous judicial education is essential for a well-functioning judiciary at the JTI.

Prior to joining the judiciary, Ngugi was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington where he received numerous teaching awards, including two Professor of the Year awards in 2005 and 2011.

He has served in several high-profile multi-judge bench cases, including the Building Bridges Initiative Petitions in 2021; Ballot Tender (Al-Ghurair) case in 2017 and the Lapsset case in 2019; the SGR (Mombasa Port) case in 2020 among others.

Ngugi led a five-judge bench that slammed the brakes on the BBI when they issued orders barring the president from assenting to the bill until the case was determined.

As a single judge, he has also handled several high-profile murder cases including the Kihiu Mwiri cases and the Kiiru Boys Principal's murder case.