It was a scene that Kenya’s establishment must have hoped would never be photographed. On Tuesday, the country’s former chief justice, Willy Mutunga, was bundled into a police truck at a protest against a luxury housing development in Uhuru Park. The park, one of Nairobi’s few green lungs, is being sold off to developers despite public outcry.
Mutunga, a man who once embodied the rule of law, was now on the wrong side of it. The UK’s reaction was swift: a call for adherence to the rule of law, a statement of concern. But one has to ask: when the rule of law is used to silence a chief justice, is the law still ruling, or is it simply being used?
The protest was not some fringe gathering. It included clergy, lawyers, and ordinary citizens who have watched Nairobi’s public spaces vanish one by one. The park’s development is part of a larger trend where the wealthy carve up the city for their own pleasure, while the rest are left to breathe dust.
Mutunga's arrest was a symbolic act, a warning that even the most respected figures are not above the new order. But what does the UK’s statement mean? In the past, such calls have been polite, toothless.
The real question is whether the UK is willing to follow its words with action, or if this is just another report to file. On the streets of Nairobi, the mood is grim. People are realising that public space is not just grass and trees.
It is the only place where rich and poor can stand together as equals. When that space is sold, democracy shrinks. The arrest of a chief justice is a metaphor for a country losing its way.
But it is also a test. Will the judiciary, now missing its former head, stand up for the law? Or will the law become just another tool for those who own the park?
