LAWYERS WARN OF NEED TO PROTECT LAND

Lawyers have called for fast tracking of a law to protect threatened community land. They said majority of the 70 per cent of unadjudicated land would fall under community land. Lawyer Paul Ndung’u said community land must be protected in the new constitutional dispensation to prevent a repeat of historical injustices at the Coast.

“Communities at the Coast, Rift Valley and others lost land to illegal and irregular allocations following lack of a law to protect community land,” he said. Ndung’u chaired the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal and Irregular Allocations of Public Land (Ndung’u Commission) that exposed massive land grabbing.

He was speaking at the Law Society of Kenya Continuing Legal Education two-day seminar at Queens Garden in Eldoret. He said reports that would have assisted in solving historical land injustice like The Njonjo Land Commission on Land Law System of Kenya are gathering dust. “Recommendations by the Parliamentary Committee on the Coastal Land Problems in 1976 are yet to see the light of day,” he said.

Lawyer Scholar Collins Odongo said enactment of the Community Land Act would protect the 70 per cent of unadjudicated land.