State officers should obey all court orders

The purpose of the constitutional change that came into effect in 2010 was to institutionalise good governance and the rule of law. It was designed to expand democratic space, promote human rights and civil liberties and in turn cure grave ills of the past that had made Kenya a dictatorship and police state.

To this extent, therefore, the Constitution requires rule-based governance. All government institutions and agencies are guided by the law. All citizens, irrespective of their station in life, are subjects to the law.

However, we are increasingly witnessing a relapse in the observance of the rule of law. Government institutions such as the police and provincial administration have become notorious for disobeying laws that they swore to protect. In equal measure, political leaders have become a threat to the rule of law, exhibiting anarchic tendencies but blaming everyone else as they seek public sympathy. The political landscape is polluted with insults, invectives and diatribes. The drama witnessed during the arrest of Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria on Friday and the debacle over the return of the belligerent political activist Miguna Miguna exemplify the trend where both the government and the individuals act in total defiance of the law.

Mr Kuria was arrested over claims of assault and detained at Nairobi’s Kilimani Police Station. He consequently obtained a court order to be freed on cash bail, but the police refused to release him. Similarly, Miguna had obtained a court order directing the government to restore his citizenship, return his passport and allow his free travel into the country. All these court directives have been gravely disobeyed by government officials.

These incidents demonstrate a growing level of high-handedness and police brutality. The government is becoming imperious in dealing with citizens. Rebel Jubilee politicians and those seen to be coalescing around Deputy President William Ruto have suffered the wrath of such brutality. In turn, they have taken to the rostrum to fulminate over the return of the dark Kanu days of dictatorship and police brutality. Most of those politicians are turncoats and deceitful. But they have a point.

Every citizen has a right of assembly and expression. The government must accept divergent views, however unpalatable. Using police to block critics is anachronistic and deplorable in this day and age. We must bring an end to this growing culture of high-handedness and intolerance that risk clawing back democratic gains made in the past decade.