National Land Commission Hearing Sessions a Shouting Contest

I attended a hearing on Monday, 19^th December 2016 at the National Land Commission chambers. At the beginning of every session is a National Anthem and a word of prayer. This might give you a glimpse hope of organizational behavior, seriousness, professionalism and rational conduct of the commission. However, what you see is what you don’t get.

The mandate of the National Land Commission (NLC) is drawn from the National Land Policy of 2009, Constitution of Kenya 2010, National Land Commission Act, 2012, the Land Act 2012 and the Land Registration Act of 2012. A cursory look at its mandate discloses the role they supposedly play in realigning the historical land injustice. That might require some seriousness of sort in the hearing of public reviews which the commission is obligated by law to conduct, and has indeed undertaken the role, quite questionably.

Not so much is to be said about their professional competence to undertake their roles. However, their distinguished credentials and experience do not translate to professional capacity to offer any insight on dispute resolution on land injustices. In fact, the sessions depict a coincidental collection of an unprepared and inexperienced team asking questions anyhow and anyone with absolutely no rules of procedure. The parties to various disputes would be seated obviously seeking to find their assistance in their pursuit of justice and dispute resolution. They, however, go home more agitated, unsatisfied and hopeless.

The sessions are without rules as to who has to be heard first, which parties or witnesses are to be heard, time allocation, documentation to be produced etc. Instead, the commission will sit without the documents necessary for their own reference, and once a certain page of the documents is referred to, they stop and ask their clerk, who is having a small-talk in a corner, to find those documents. Nonetheless, the session proceeds. The clerk, of course, doesn’t find, they ask you to come back again at a future date, to do the same thing in a different way, to waste more time without any prospects of finding a solution.

There were attempts of calling the sessions to order, which were met by responses of; ‘we are a constitutional commission and we are obliged to inform ourselves the way we want’. Citing the constitution in a blanket reference to shield or defend their lofty positions in an elaborate disorganization already too bad. The commissioners forget that the constitution itself is orderly and so is expected of any institution created by it. More so, the commission, in attempting to establish truth and justice for land injustice victims, they should observe the principles of natural justice. It is their fundamental constitutional role. I am apprehensive that at an advanced level of these observations, based on the events of that day, serious complaints will be made to relevant authorities.

In the final stretch of the unwarranted misadventure, one picks issues with the conduct of the National Land commission. Isn’t it one of the prizes of the New Constitution? Will this very commission continue to review land injustice in Kenya? Will the parties to land disputes entrust, beyond reproach, the decisions of the commission? Will the Commission continue to waste more time whilst their principal function should or ought to be expedience? Isn’t a waste of time equal to a waste of resources, being that commissioners are paid by tax-payers monies?

Ultimately, I am of the view that the seriousness that land disputes deserve is infinite. This has, to begin with, procedural mechanisms of conducting such public reviews and respect for key players in the fact-finding mission. It has to begin with the willingness of the commissions to conduct themselves in decorum to earn and deserve the respect of their decisions. It has to begin with acknowledging that Justice is bound by time and consequently time must be observed through clear processes and procedure. It would also help if the commission conducted itself with humility. Arrogance and disrespect raises questions on the efficacy of the commission in ensuring effective service, competencies and accountability.

Perhaps I should add that at the end of the session was another National Anthem and a word of prayer. And I thought to myself how blasphemous and hypocritical we had portrayed our patriotism and faith.