Nine years of silence as court ruling on Ogiek rights is ignored

Kenya is once again under pressure to honour a landmark ruling by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which ordered reparations for the Ogiek community.

Nearly nine years since the Arusha-based court found that the government had violated the Ogiek’s land, cultural, and religious rights through decades of forced evictions from the Mau Forest, implementation has stalled.

Human rights groups, regional bodies, and community leaders are now calling on Nairobi to deliver on its obligations, warning that continued delays deepen historical injustices against one of the country’s most marginalised peoples.

The petitioners and other parties involved in the cases were in the court for an Implementation hearing in June 2025.

Ogiek People Development Programme  Executive Director Daniel Kobei, said they are waiting for the court to rule on the detailed implementation the government of Kenya had been asked to provide.

The court ruled that Kenya should pay Sh57.8 million in material damages, Sh100,000 in moral damages, and to grant the Ogiek a collective land title through delimitation and demarcation.

The court also ordered full recognition of the Ogiek, including their language, cultural and religious practices, by June 23, 2023.

Communal titling

The government wanted the titling to be done on individual basis but the court ruled on a communal titling.

Kobei stated that the community feared issuance of individual land titles for households would subject them to land grabbing and erosion of their culture.

 “We’re foreseeing a situation whereby Ogieks can go extinct if the evictions continue. Land subdivisions as proposed by the government will worsen this concern because some may be tempted or coerced to sell land,” said Kobei.

He also alleged that they are cautious of any sinister move to dismantle the titles and allocate their land to non-Ogiek people.

Kobei said they asked for about 10 community land titles for the various Ogiek members in different parts.

He noted that the National Lands Commission had the implementation of the judgement as ruled by the court on basis on historical injustices.

“We are imploring the government to implement the ruling as it is in honour of the Ogieks’ culture and their efforts for conversation,” he added.

The inaction by Kenya to implement the court’s ruling on the Ogiek community featured prominently during the Annual Workshop on Implementation of Decisions of African Human Rights Bodies in Nairobi,

According to Alio Diallo a legal officer representing the court at the forum, the ruling is one of the decisions by the court that have been met with inaction by states.

On May 26,2017, the Court made ruled that Kenya had violated the Ogiek community’s right by expelling them from their ancestral lands against their will.

In doing so, the court ruled that the community was denied their cultural, religious rights and rights to land.

Based on the merit ruling made in 2017, the Court later in June 2022 issued a reparations judgement ordering Kenya to pay compensation to the Ogiek for the material and moral prejudice they suffered and take legislative measures to identify, delimit and title Ogiek ancestral land and to grant them collective title.

The Court also ordered Kenya to guarantee full recognition of the Ogiek as an indigenous people of Kenya and to take all measures to protect the right of the Ogiek.

Kenya was also ordered to effectively consult the Ogiek community in respect of all development, conservation or investment projects on its land within their traditions and customs.

The Ogiek’s case traces back to 2009 when the Ogiek filed a complaint after eviction notices from the government. The matter was referred to the African Court in 2012, which in 2017 ruled that Kenya had violated rights to non-discrimination, property, culture, and religion.

The court affirmed that the Ogiek are a distinct indigenous group entitled to ancestral land and cultural protections.

In 2019, the government appointed a task force to advise on implementation, but its report was never made public.

A second judgment in June 2022 ordered Kenya to pay compensation, grant collective land titles, recognise the Ogiek as an indigenous people, and establish a community development fund within 12 months.

Yet, none of these measures have been implemented.

During the June 2025 hearing of implementation status, the government reported to the court that they had formed a taskforce through the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change to advise on implementation plan and asked for more time.

It also reported that public hearings and consultations were conducted with the Ogiek community as part of the implementation process.

However, the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme maintains that nothing has been done since the ruling was made.

Expressed concerns

Anne Okutoyi, Director at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), expressed concerns about the government’s failure to implement the African Court’s rulings in favour of the community.

“The commission is really gravely concerned by the lack of the implementation of the judgments in the Ogiek case,” she sated.

“From where we sit as a commission, really, we see this as a lack of political will to be able to respect these decisions and implement them.

‘‘The government has consistently delayed action despite clear timelines, instead requesting more time at compliance hearings,” she regretted.

Despite playing their bridging role to facilitate dialogue between the government, civil society, and the Ogiek community, even developing an implementation matrix, Okutoyi stated that the commission not “seeing any tangible fruits from the engagement”.

The Commission’s director stated that they have observed a trend of government’s inaction in implementation of decisions from the African bodies.

She cited the case of the Endorois indigenous community where the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights affirmed violations of their rights and ordered for their compensation.

 Just like the Ogiek’s matter, a task force that was set up but she says, it was never resourced, hence they never finalised their work.

“We do not see the judgments and the orders coming alive. Similarly, we also have the Nubian community had actually lodged a complaint both to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child,” she sated.

“When you look at all this, there is a trend in that these are all Indigenous communities, they are vulnerable populations, and they face constant risks with regards to their rights when you look at their evictions, lack of identity and the discrimination that follows as a result,” she added.

KNCHR stated that the African Court’s decisions, such as the unanimous ruling in the Ogiek case, are binding and final under the charter and protocol that Kenya ratified.

However, Kenya’s failure to take progressive steps toward implementing these rulings raises serious concern about its commitment to regional judicial authority.