President Ruto Faces Expired Court Deadline on Cabinet Gender Rule

The 120-day High Court deadline for reconstituting the Cabinet to comply with the two-thirds gender rule expired on October 28, 2026 without any reported action, leaving President William Ruto under renewed legal pressure.

The deadline followed a June 30, 2026 judgment by Justices Eric Ogola, Jairus Ngaah and Stephen Githinji that declared the 25-member Cabinet unconstitutional because it contained seven women and 18 men, giving women only 28 percent of the posts and falling short of the nine women required by Article 27(8) of the Constitution.

Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu told a local television station that the President has the prerogative to appoint Cabinet Secretaries at any time and could therefore meet the gender threshold immediately, saying “Appointment of Cabinet Secretaries is a responsibility; it is a prerogative of the president. He appoints whom he wants, when he wants.”

The petition that led to the judgment was filed by civil-society groups including the Katiba Institute, the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness and Transparency International Kenya, and Katiba Institute welcomed the ruling, warned the government against delay and pledged to pursue enforcement measures, noting that Article 27(8) imposes an immediate obligation.

President Ruto, speaking at the Katiba @16 celebrations at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre on August 27, compared the Cabinet dispute to Parliament’s long-standing failure to meet the two-thirds threshold and said the requirement remains a work in progress, while a subsequent reshuffle reduced the number of women Cabinet Secretaries from seven to six.

The Cabinet is already at the constitutional maximum of 22 Secretaries, meaning compliance would require either replacing some male appointees with women or undertaking a broader reconfiguration of the executive team.

The Attorney General applied to the Court of Appeal for an urgent stay of the High Court judgment; the appellate court declined to certify the application as urgent, ordered the parties to exchange submissions within 30 days, and noted that Principal Administrative Secretary Arthur A. Osyia warned that implementing the changes before the appeal could alter the Cabinet composition irreversibly.

The petitioners have indicated they may consider contempt proceedings or a fresh enforcement action, as the original judgment did not prescribe an automatic sanction for missing the deadline.