High Court orders deployment of uniformed police officers during protests

Police officers deployed to maintain law and order during protests must be in full uniform and should not conceal their faces.

This is after the High Court today made a landmark ruling that barred the Inspector General of Police from deploying officers in civilian clothes or concealed faces to hide their identities.

In his ruling, Justice Bahati Mwamuye stated that the police should be identifiable at all times.

“A declaration is hereby issued that any law enforcement officer deployed to maintain law and order during an assembly, demonstration, or picketing must be in uniform and shall not, in any way, conceal their identity, including by obscuring their face, to remain unidentifiable,” Mwamuye ordered.

While delivering the ruling, Mwamuye emphasised that when officers are identifiable, it is easy to uphold accountability and public trust in enforcing the law.

“The conduct of police officers unmasked and in uniform who carried out unlawful arrests of individuals exercising their right to picket under Article 37 of the Constitution amounted to a violation of those individuals’ rights,” the judge ruled.

Justice Mwamuye stated that the officers who were deployed during the Gen Z protests last year violated the Constitution and acted unlawfully, as he added that uniformed officers provide a safeguard for demonstrators and the general public, while any attempt to obscure identities encourages impunity.

He further invalidated the government’s attempt to restrict protests in certain areas, terming the proposed limitations as unconstitutional.

“A declaration is hereby issued that the proposed limitation on the exercise of the right under Article 37 in the subject area was blanket, overbroad, and based on mere convenience. It did not meet the threshold set out under Article 24 of the Constitution,” he directed.

The ruling comes after the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) challenged the legality of police conduct during the Finance Bill 2024 protests held on June 18 in Nairobi’s Central Business District, during which Rex Masai was fatally injured.

The lawyers had sued the IG and police officer Isaiah Ndumba Murangiri, who is alleged to have fatally shot Masai.

They argued that most instances of police brutality and killings during protests involve officers without proper identification or uniforms.

Even though the Director of Public Prosecutions had earlier said no witnesses had come forward to help identify the officer responsible for Masai’s death, LSK insisted in court that Murangiri was the officer involved.