This archive report was first published on 18 July 2020.
On July 18, 2020, the High Court made a significant ruling that will impact the way criminal cases are handled in Kenya.
According to the ruling, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) will no longer have the power to craft charge sheets and take people to court. Instead, the DCI will focus on collecting evidence, while the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will take over all criminal cases.
The Constitutional Court, in a landmark ruling, declared that any criminal proceeding carried out without the consent of the DPP is unconstitutional, illegal, unlawful, null, and void.
The ruling was made possible by a case before the court involving the acting chief executive officer of National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority, Geoffrey Sang. It emerged that the DPP had not approved the charges in the case.
Justice George Odunga, the presiding judge, stated that attempts by the DCI to charge a person with a criminal offense without the consent of the DPP amount to an abuse of power.
The court also ruled that the DPP is not bound to prosecute simply because the investigating agencies have formed an opinion that a prosecution ought to be undertaken.
