“Ignorance of the law is not a defence to me, doesn’t make sense. The Accused should know what they have been accused of and how they are going to defend themselves when they appear in court.”[1]
Introduction
Access to justice is a constitutional guarantee under Article 48 of the Constitution of Kenya. This guarantee is further reinforced by the Legal Aid Act of 2016 (hereinafter the Act), the principal legislative framework enacted to give practical effect to the constitutional promise that justice shall be accessible to all through an institutional legal aid scheme.[2] There is, however, a general tendency for access to justice reforms to prioritise programmes supporting formal mechanisms of justice, especially judicial adjudication, thereby reducing the concept of access to justice to access to lawyers, typically through pro-bono legal representation.[3] Yet, contemporary rule-of-law scholarship recognises that legal awareness is equally essential, since the law must be capable of guiding the ordinary citizen’s conduct.[4]Access to justice therefore contains two linked components, legal awareness, which helps individuals understand and avoid violating the law, and legal representation, which resolves disputes after they arise. The former is preventive while the latter reactive.
In Kenya, the implementation of access to justice has largely focused on legal representation.[5] This is reflected in the Act. The Act recognises legal awareness as one of the objects of the legal aid framework and as one of the functions of the National Legal Aid Service (NLAS).[6] However, as will be argued later in the blog, its strongest and most developed provisions still speak the language of legal representation.
Although the State has promoted legal literacy through NLAS, the statutory body established to administer Kenya’s legal aid scheme, and through accredited providers such as legal aid clinics and civil society organisations,[7] these efforts remain insufficient in a context of poverty, legal complexity, and uneven literacy.[8] According to World Bank , Kenya’s most recent adult literacy rate stood at 82.88 percent as at 2022. [9] At first glance, this may appear relatively high, however, when situated within a global context, where the average literacy rate was approximately 87.16 per cent at the time, Kenya’s literacy levels appear comparatively lower.[10] Additionally, when compared to Kenya’s population, it translates to approximately 5.5 million adults who cannot read or write, which translates to quite a huge a population.[11] Moreover, even that figure overstates effective legal access, since basic literacy, which is defined by UNESCO as the ability to read a short simple statement about everyday life, is not the same as legal literacy, which is the capacity to read a statute, interpret a regulatory form, or understand court procedure.[12] The legal literacy gap is therefore substantially wider than the headline percentage suggests. Therefore, a significant part of the Kenyan population still faces basic literacy barriers before one even gets to the harder question of legal literacy.
In a system where ignorance of the law is no defence, the State bears a stronger obligation to promote legal awareness and make the law knowable.[13] This obligation is not only moral but also constitutional. As can be gleaned from the constitution, the right to access to justice, particularly in its legal awareness dimension, is a socio-economic right.[14] Socio-economic rights are those human rights that aim to secure for all members of a particular society a basic quality of life in terms of food, water, shelter, education, health care and housing.[15] They exist precisely to protect human dignity. A person who cannot understand the law is easily excluded from the protection of other rights and entitlements such as land, work, family, liberty, housing, livelihood and other rights. Such a person, who cannot understand the law that governs their land, employment, family or liberty is denied the minimum material and cognitive conditions for a dignified life. As such, the State’s duty to realise this right is not passive and must be assessed against its obligations to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil through concrete positive measures.[16]
This blog therefore argues that, as a socio-economic right aiming at protecting human dignity, access to justice requires sustained investment in legal literacy, particularly because the legal system operates on the principle that ignorance of the law is not a defence. It proposes structured partnerships with university law clinics alongside a more balanced legal aid framework. It proceeds in five parts: first, it examines the paradox between legal awareness and representation in Kenya’s access-to-justice framework; second, it analyses the tension between the ignorance maxim and modern legal complexity; third, it evaluates the reactive orientation of the Act; fourth, it advances university law clinics as a preventive justice model and finally concludes by calling for a shift from representation-centred access to legal awareness.
1. The Paradox of Access to Justice in Kenya
Access to justice is a fundamental right guaranteed to every person in Kenya under Article 48 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010), regardless of their status or social standing.[17] The provision obliges the State to ensure justice is accessible to all and that any required fees do not impede the pursuit of justice.[18] However, the practical realisation of this right reveals a dual structure comprising two linked components, legal awareness and legal representation. Legal awareness operates as a preventive form of legal education that enables citizens to understand their rights and obligations before violations occur,[19] whereas legal representation addresses disputes after they arise within the formal legal system.
The paradox is that access to justice is promised to all, yet the public understanding of the right often begins only when a dispute has already matured. A person who has already been arrested, sued, evicted, dismissed, or disinherited may then understand access to justice as getting a lawyer or approaching a court. That response is important, but it comes late. The constitutional promise is thinner if the citizen first meets the law at the point of crisis.
Historically, Kenya’s approach to legal aid has been reactive rather than proactive.[20] Prior to the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, the State’s involvement in legal aid was extremely narrow and focused largely on representation for suspects charged with capital offences such as murder in the High Court.[21] The current constitutional and statutory framework is broader. Article 48 constitutionalises access to justice, while the Act creates a national legal aid framework. Even so, the inherited weight of representation remains visible. As will be shown later in the blog, the current system recognises legal awareness but still gives more practical detail to courtroom assistance than to sustained public legal education. In turn, many Kenyans, particularly those in marginalised or indigent communities, remained unaware of their basic rights, rendering constitutional guarantees an elusive luxury.[22]
This matters because access to justice has a socio-economic dimension. It is not realised merely because courts exist or because the State refrains from blocking a litigant from filing a case. It requires positive steps and realisation so that other rights can also be protected. Without such measures, the promise of Article 48 may remain formal for those who cannot read the law, pay for advice, travel to legal institutions, or understand the procedure they are expected to follow. For indigent and marginalised communities, legal awareness is therefore not a luxury but the first door to the justice system.
2. Legal Awareness, the Ignorance Maxim, and the Rule of Law
2.1 Ignorance of the law in Kenya
The Kenyan legal system, like many modern jurisdictions, adheres to the maxim ignorantia juris non excusat, [23] which states that ignorance of the law is not a defence. This principle is codified in Section 7 of the Penal Code. [24] Courts therefore presume that all persons know the law. The maxim serves an important purpose. If every accused person or wrongdoer could escape liability by saying that they did not know the law, enforcement would become uncertain and the rule of law would lose much of its force.
However, the difficulty is that the maxim rests on a demanding assumption that the law is available, understandable, and capable of guiding conduct. For lawyers, that assumption may look ordinary but for an ordinary citizen navigating statutes, regulations, court procedures, administrative forms, and official language, it is a much heavier burden. The rule of law requires more than the existence of rules. It requires that rules should be reasonably knowable to the people expected to obey them.[25]
2.2 The problem of the maxim in modern Kenya
The modern legal environment differs fundamentally from earlier social orders since earlier societies had fewer simpler laws as compared to the modern legal environment which has complex and an ever-expanding body of regulation.[26] This is not to suggest that earlier societies were perfect, or that fewer laws automatically produced justice. Earlier societies, including, pre-colonial African customary legal orders carried their own merits and demerits.[27] However, many norms were transmitted through family, elders, community practice, oral tradition, and daily social relations, rather than through detailed statutory codes written in technical language.[28] This made the norms, which carried the binding force of law, widely accessible to everyone in a format that was easy to understand. At the time colonial criminal legislation, namely the Penal Code, and the maxim of ignorance of the law is no defence was introduced,[29] pre-colonial African legal orders had largely relied on customary systems of law that were predominantly unwritten and transmitted through community practice and oral tradition rather than detailed statutory codes.[30] Earlier societies like the Athens and Rome provide an even sharper contrast. There, laws were relatively few, rooted in custom and widely known within the community.[31] Legal knowledge was therefore socially mediated in ways that are often absent in the modern statutory State. By contrast, modern states operate extensive regulatory regimes marked by proliferating statutes and specialised legal language.[32]
Today, Kenya operates within a dense legal order. Parliament enacts statutes, while ministries, regulatory agencies, and county authorities generate regulations, rules, notices, guidelines, forms, and procedures under enabling laws.[33] Despite measures such as public participation ensuring the involvement of citizens in law-making, participation at the point of law-making is usually procedural and not substantive and cannot be treated as a substitute for continuing legal awareness after the law is passed.[34] A citizen may attend a public forum and still never understand the final Act, regulation, or procedure that later governs their life. This complexity is further compounded by high illiteracy levels and procedural barriers that exclude many citizens from meaningful engagement with the legal system.[35]
Evidence from comparative jurisdictions reinforces this concern. In a case addressing the ignorance maxim in the United Kingdom, Lord Justice Toulson observed that although Acts of Parliament are formally enacted by the legislature, much of the law governing everyday life now derives from delegated legislation.[36] Over the past half-century, the volume of such delegated legislation has multiplied enormously, with reports of the Law Commission documenting the dramatic expansion and fragmentation of the statutory landscape.[37] The result, he suggested, is a dense legal maze navigable only by specialists, in which ordinary citizens struggle to locate the rules that govern them.
The problem, therefore, is not that Kenya has many laws. The problem is that considerable public energy goes into making laws, while less energy is invested in translating those laws into public knowledge. Even though decisions and statutes are published through platforms such as Kenya Law Reports, the combined effect of technical drafting, institutional fragmentation and regulatory growth means that accessibility in form does not translate into accessibility in substance. This imbalance is made worse by language, literacy, poverty, and distance from legal institutions. If the adult basic literacy rate is 82.88 percent, and if legal literacy remains harder than basic literacy, publication alone cannot make the law accessible.[38]
This is where the ignorance maxim becomes troubling. The law presumes knowledge, but the State has not invested equally in making the law known. The result is a gap between formal legality and lived access. Where the law is effectively unknowable, it stops functioning as guidance and begins to operate as surprise. If ignorance is not a defence, awareness must become a public responsibility.
2.3 Legal awareness as preventive justice
Legal awareness is more than the publication of statutes and judgments.[39] It includes simplified legal materials, community outreach, legal literacy clinics, school and prison visits, radio programmes, local-language explanations, paralegal work, referrals, and practical guidance on where to seek help. It also includes teaching citizens the ordinary things that determine whether rights are protected such as how to report a violation, which institution to approach, what documents to keep, when limitation periods matter and when legal advice should be sought.
Seen in this way, legal awareness strengthens the rule of law. It helps citizens arrange their conduct around the law before they violate it or before their rights are lost. It also reduces fear of legal institutions by making the law less distant. Legal representation remains necessary, especially for serious criminal charges and complex civil claims. However, representation alone cannot carry the whole burden of Article 48. By the time a lawyer is needed, the dispute may already have caused loss, delay, fear and potential violation of other rights. All these could have been reduced through earlier information.
This section has therefore shown that, unlike the earlier societies where laws, which were in the form of norms, were few and easily understood, modern societies contain complex and an ever-expanding body of legislation. The ignorance maxim is not wrong in itself, but it becomes unfair where the law is not reasonably knowable. That concern leads directly to the Act, because the Act is Kenya’s main statutory attempt to give institutional meaning to access to justice.
3. Legal Awareness under the Act
The Legal Aid Act of 2016 sought to address inequalities in access to justice by creating an institutional framework for State-supported legal services. It is a major step forward. Its objects include providing affordable, accessible, sustainable, credible, and accountable legal aid services, promoting legal awareness, supporting community legal services, and promoting alternative dispute resolution.[40] The Act also mandates NLAS to promote legal aid services in universities, colleges, and other educational institutions, and to promote public interest litigation and legal awareness.[41]
Despite such progressive efforts, legal awareness initiatives remain episodic rather than institutionalised. In practice, many legal literacy and public legal education programmes are implemented through civil society projects and donor-funded initiatives rather than through a continuous nationwide state-led strategy.[42] This episodic approach limits legal awareness and access to justice, as initiatives reach only specific regions.[43]
Additionally, the act tends to be more inclined towards legal representation than legal awareness. This structural preference is visible in the text of the Act itself. Across the Act, the word representation or its variants appears at least six times across key operative provisions. It appears in the definition of legal aid (second in the chronology),[44] functions of NLAS,[45] in the application of the Legal Aid Fund,[46] in the duties of courts toward unrepresented accused persons,[47] and in the monitoring and evaluation of legal services.[48] On the other hand, awareness appears only three times, confined to the definition of awareness (at the tail end of the chronology),[49] objects of the Act,[50] and the functions of the NLAS.[51] Noteworthy is that awareness appears only in goal-setting clauses, never in a provision that creates an enforceable procedural obligation. As illustrated above, every reference to representation creates or triggers a concrete procedural obligation, a court duty, a fund expenditure or a monitoring function. For example, Section 43 places a specific, court-triggered duty on the State to provide representation in criminal proceedings. On the other hand, every reference to awareness sits in aspirational clauses (objects and functions) with no corresponding trigger, timeline, or enforcement mechanism. Further, the sequencing and repetition of terms within the statutory definition are not conclusive by themselves, but they form part of the Act’s internal context. Statutes must be read first as a whole and then section by section, clause by clause, phrase by phrase and word by word.[52] On that approach, the fact that legal representation is foregrounded in the definition of legal aid, and is then repeated in the Act’s operative provisions, is relevant to understanding the Act’s practical orientation. This asymmetry, where representation is prior-listed as an immediate, obligation-oriented service, while awareness appears later as an aspirational function, suggests where the Act’s practical emphasis is likely to lie.
Even within representation, the Act gives clearer and stronger protection to accused persons in criminal proceedings than to persons seeking help in civil disputes. This can be seen in Section 43 which places specific obligations on courts where an unrepresented accused person faces criminal proceedings, while civil legal aid is filtered through considerations such as available resources, prospects of success, and whether the probable outcome justifies the estimated costs of the proceedings.[53] This does not make criminal legal representation less important. It simply shows that the statutory framework still carries the old assumption that access to justice becomes urgent mainly when a person needs a lawyer in court.
These structural features collectively reinforce the imbalance between representation and legal awareness within Kenya’s legal aid framework. Scholarship shows that in practice, funding allocations tend to favour case-based assistance, directing resources toward courtroom representation, which is often costly, thereby limiting the resources available for sustained community education programmes.[54] Publicly available budget material does not appear to disaggregate expenditure on legal representation from expenditure on legal awareness. Instead, NLAS is presented in the national budget as a single programme allocation.[55] The associated performance indicators focus primarily on aggregate outputs, such as the number of indigent persons offered legal aid, the number of legal aid providers educated on alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and the number of legal aid offices operationalised, rather than the proportion of resources devoted to specific legal aid activities such as public legal education.[56] Consequently, it is difficult to determine from published budget documents how much funding is allocated to legal awareness as opposed to case-based legal assistance/ representation.
The difficulty therefore is that legal awareness is not clearly visible as a distinct budgetary and performance category. That invisibility matters because what is not separately planned, costed and measured is easily treated as secondary to case-based legal assistance. Similarly, performance and reporting frameworks within legal aid institutions often evaluate success by the number of cases handled or resolved, instead of by the extent to which citizens have been empowered with legal knowledge.[57] Accreditation and professional standards further entrench this orientation, as they typically prioritise litigation competence and advocacy skills over demonstrable capacity for public legal education or outreach.[58] For example, the Legal Aid Code of Conduct for Accredited Legal Aid Providers emphasises sufficient experience, skill, knowledge, and competence to provide quality representation to legal aid beneficiaries as qualities for one to be accredited as a legal aid provider.[59] As a result, legal literacy initiatives are frequently treated as supplementary or optional undertakings rather than as core statutory responsibilities, leaving preventive legal empowerment underdeveloped despite its centrality to meaningful access to justice.[60] These standards are necessary, but they should be matched with equally serious attention to public legal education. Accreditation should value not only litigation capacity, but also community outreach, simplified legal materials, local-language engagement, referral systems and data on legal literacy activities.
There are several converging explanations as to why legal aid systems in Kenya tend to favour representation over legal awareness. The first is international legal genealogy. The right to legal aid in international instruments was born in the criminal justice context through provisions such as Article 14(3)(d) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which guarantees free legal assistance in criminal proceedings.[61] Further, the United Nations General Assembly’s Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems, which was the first international instrument dedicated to legal aid, is framed entirely around criminal justice.[62] Consequently, when domestic legal aid systems were designed, they were heavily shaped by this criminal-law baseline, thereby making representation in criminal proceedings the default model. The second is historical. Colonial administration did not invest in the legal education of African populations. [63] Legal training was deliberately restricted during the colonial era because trained African lawyers were feared as potential agitators for political independence.[64] The result was that the legal system was transmitted as a tool of control rather than a framework of citizen knowledge. When Kenya inherited the legal aid framework after independence, it inherited this same orientation. Law was viewed as something administered by trained professionals for the benefit of subjects and not as a body of knowledge belonging to ordinary citizens. The third explanation is institutional. As explained elsewhere in this paper, legal aid systems globally tend to fund outputs that are measurable and verifiable, as seen in the various legal aid reports.[65] Cases opened, proceedings concluded, representation provided are easier to justify rather than awareness work which entails community sessions, simplified materials, radio outreach and school visits. Legal aid bureaucracies therefore face structural incentives to invest in representation because it fits existing reporting and accountability frameworks.
Due to this open inclination towards legal representation, legal awareness initiatives under the act remain fragmented and underfunded as compared to representation. In a system grounded on the presumption of legal knowledge, this imbalance undermines the very rationale of the ignorance maxim and weakens the constitutional promise of access to justice. To address this, the next section considers university law clinics as one practical way of making legal awareness more continuous, local and affordable.
4. University Law Clinics as Preventive Justice Institutions
Community Service is the greatest way you can exercise your skills or knowledge.[66]
University law clinics offer a practical institutional mechanism to close this gap. The Act recognises legal aid clinics and includes universities and institutions operating legal aid clinics among legal aid providers. [67] It also gives NLAS a role in promoting legal aid services in universities, colleges and other educational institutions.[68] This means that university law clinics are not merely charitable extensions of law schools. They are part of the statutory ecosystem through which legal aid and legal awareness may be delivered.
Clinical legal education has long been recognised as a tool for combating both poverty and legal ignorance.[69] Beyond providing representation, clinics serve a broader function since they translate legal rules into accessible knowledge and bring the law closer to communities. By combining student training with supervised community service, clinics expand access to legal information at relatively low cost while fostering a culture of public-interest lawyering. Unlike traditional legal aid offices, clinics operate simultaneously as training institutions and community service platforms. They can conduct legal awareness sessions, prepare simplified materials, support referrals, assist with preliminary drafting and demystify legal procedures for citizens who might otherwise encounter legal information only during crisis.
A compelling illustration of this preventive model is provided by the Centre for Legal Aid and Clinical Legal Education (CLACLE) at Kabarak University Law School.[70] CLACLE is a student-run law clinic based in Nakuru, established as a bridge between legal education and social justice, and as a platform through which law students translate classroom learning into community engagement, public interest advocacy and professional legal practice. It coordinates legal aid services, prison and remand home visits, community outreach and legal awareness initiatives, moot court training, policy research, treaty-body reporting, blog symposia and public dialogues.[71]
This structure reflects the preventive justice model. CLACLE does not only respond to disputes, it also seeks to create legal knowledge. In 2025, it held open legal aid clinics at Kabarak University School of Law, where members of the community received free legal aid, advice and legal education. Clients sought assistance on land and property disputes, family and succession matters, employment issues, criminal procedure guidance, and general legal rights awareness. On top of that, some community members continued to visit the CLACLE office outside scheduled clinic days, suggesting that visibility and trust grew beyond formal clinic dates.[72]
The clinic’s partnerships also demonstrate how university law clinics can strengthen access to justice. CLACLE has partnered with NLAS in Nakuru, the Strathmore Law Clinic, the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions, the Kabarak Law School Alumni Association and other institutions to ensure that it provides seamless services with relation to legal awareness, and access to justice as a whole.[73] Further, NLAS-Nakuru and CLACLE agreed to partner in the provision of legal aid and pro bono services within Nakuru County.[74] This is important because it shows that collaboration between NLAS and university law clinics is not only possible in theory, it is already unfolding in practice, though it can be made more structured, predictable and national.
The CLACLE model should nevertheless be understood as a case study and not a complete national solution. CLACLE covers only a small part of Nakuru and operates within the limits of student calendars, supervision capacity, funding, transport, community mobilisation and institutional resources. Similar limitations affect many university law clinics. For clinics to serve as a national preventive justice network, NLAS should support them through structured accreditation, regular referrals, training for clinicians and supervisors, small grants for outreach, common legal literacy materials in Kiswahili and local languages and a reporting framework that counts not only cases handled, but communities reached and legal knowledge delivered.
This approach would not replace advocates or formal representation. Instead, it would create a better pipeline into legal aid. Citizens would encounter legal information earlier, students would be trained in public-interest lawyering, NLAS would gain decentralised partners and the State would move closer to fulfilling Article 48 as a living guarantee. University law clinics therefore offer a realistic bridge between the Act’s recognition of legal awareness and the constitutional demand that justice be accessible to all.
5. Conclusion
This blog has argued three things, that access to justice under Article 48 and the Act, in extension, is a socio-economic right with a dignity-protecting function that demands more than courts and lawyers, that Kenya’s legal aid framework, while genuinely progressive, still gives stronger practical attention to representation than to legal awareness and that university law clinics, properly supported, offer a viable and already-operational mechanism for delivering preventive legal empowerment.
The blog recommends three steps. That legal awareness be given distinct budget lines and measurable performance indicators within the legal aid framework, that NLAS formalise partnerships with university law clinics through accreditation, referrals and funding for outreach and simplified materials in accessible languages and that accreditation standards for legal aid providers be revised to value public legal education alongside litigation competence. CLACLE shows this model already works locally, therefore, the task is to extend and institutionalise it nationally.
This blog has however not examined comparative implementation models from other jurisdictions in depth, nor engaged empirically with the fiscal constraints of NLAS. Those remain important questions for future research.
A system that funds defence after violations but neglects institutions that prevent them confuses remedy with justice. For now, one point stands, that reliance on the ignorance maxim without making the law knowable risks turning legality into exclusion. A justice system committed to the rule of law must therefore move beyond representation toward genuine legal awareness and understanding of the law.
* Joshua Fwamba is the outgoing Vice Chairperson of CLACLE and he now serves as a Legal intern at S.N.W & Co Advocates.
[1] Patrick Nzomo, Remarks at the SLRC @ 10 Symposium, nd, on file with the author.
[2] el (No 6 of 2016), Section 3.
[3]United Nations Development Programme, ‘Access to justice: Practice note’, UNDP, 9 March 2004, 4, < https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/Justice_PN_En.pdf > accessed 2 June 2026.
[4] Richard H Fallon Jr, ‘The rule of law as a concept in constitutional discourse’, 97(1) Columbia Law Review (1997) 8.
[5] Asha Mikinyango and Judith Nguru, ‘Law schools as legal aid providers in Kenya: Challenges and lessons learnt from practice’, 28(2) International Journal of Clinical Legal Education (2021) 120.
[6] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Sections 3(c) and 7(1)(c).
[7] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Sections 2, 5, 7, and 29.
[8] Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, ‘A cost benefit analysis of legal aid in Kenya’, Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, 25 May 2022, 8-9; Dennis Ondieki, ‘Advancing equal access to justice in Kenya - Bridging the gap for marginalized communities’, Medium, 18 October 2023, < https://ondieki.medium.com/advancing-equal-access-to-justice-in-kenya-bridging-the-gap-for-marginalized-communities-69055c0f9667 > accessed 19 February 2026.
[9] World Bank, ‘Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) - Kenya’, World Bank Data, 2022, < https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS?locations=KE > accessed 31 May 2026.
[10] MacroTrends, ‘World Literacy Rate | Historical Data | Chart | 1976-2023’, MacroTrends, nd < https://www.macrotrends.net/datasets/global-metrics/countries/wld/world/literacy-rate > accessed 31 May 2026.
[11] World Bank, ‘Population, total - Kenya’, World Bank Data, 2022, < https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=KE > accessed 2 June 2026.
[12] UNESCO Institute for Statistics, ‘Youth or adult literacy rate’, UIS Glossary, nd, < https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/glossary/3195 > accessed 2 June 2026.
[13] Penal Code (Chapter 63 of 1930), Section 7.
[14] PLO Lumumba and Luis Franceschi, The Constitution of Kenya, 2010: An introductory commentary, Strathmore University Press, Nairobi, 2014, 132-133.
[15] Gerhard Erasmus, ‘Socio-economic rights and their implementation: The impact of domestic and international instruments’, 32(2) International Journal of Legal Information (2004) 243-259.
[16] Constitution of Kenya (2010), Article 21(1).
[17] Constitution of Kenya (2010), Article 48.
[18] Constitution of Kenya (2010), Article 48.
[19] Andrew Ashworth, ‘Ignorance of the criminal law, and duties to avoid it’, 74(1) The Modern Law Review (2011) 4-5.
[20] Eric Kyalo Mutua, ‘Access to justice in Kenya: A critical appraisal of the role of the judiciary in advancement of legal aid programmes’, Unpublished LLM Thesis, University of Nairobi, 2014, 3.
[21] Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, ‘National Action Plan, Legal Aid 2017-2022, Kenya’, Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, 2017, 15.
[22] Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, ‘A cost benefit analysis of legal aid in Kenya’.; Ondieki, ‘Advancing equal access to justice in Kenya’.
[23] Laurence D Houlgate, ‘Ignorantia juris: A plea for justice’, 78(1) Ethics (1967) 32.
[24] Penal Code (Chapter 63 of 1930), Section 7.
[25] John Gardner, Law as a leap of faith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, 230; Fallon Jr, ‘The rule of law as a concept in constitutional discourse’, 8.
[26] Steven Vago and Steven E Barkan, Law and society, 11th edition, Routledge, 2018, 35.
[27] Janine Ubink and Benjamin van Rooij, ‘Towards customary legal empowerment: An introduction’, in Janine Ubink and Thomas McInerney (eds), Customary justice: Perspectives on legal empowerment, Legal and Governance Reform: Lessons Learned No 3, International Development Law Organization, 2011, 9.
[28] Juliet O Amenge and Evelyne O Asaala, Kenyan criminal law, African Criminal Law Series 3, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 2024, 8; Lisa Owino, ‘Application of African customary law: Tracing its degradation and analysing the challenges it confronts’, 1(1) Strathmore Law Review (2016) 143; Buluma Bwire, ‘Integration of African customary legal concepts into modern law: Restorative justice: A Kenyan example’, 9(17) Societies (2019) 1.
[29] Amenge and Asaala, Kenyan criminal law, 8.
[30] Amenge and Asaala, Kenyan criminal law, 8; John S Mbiti, Introduction to African religion, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford, 1975, 4.
[31] Arnold Nciko, ‘Ignorance of the law is no defence: Street law as a means to reconcile this maxim with the rule of law’, 1(3) Strathmore Law Review (2018) 32.
[32] Brian Z Tamanaha, On the rule of law: History, politics, theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, 27.
[33] Constitution of Kenya (2010), Article 94(6).
[34] Constitution of Kenya (2010), Articles 10 and 118.
[35] Kenyan and Swedish Sections of the International Commission of Jurists, ‘Access to justice for Africa’s marginalised: Impediments and opportunities in eleven countries’, ICJ Kenya, September 2009, 30.
[36] R v Chambers [2008] EWCA Crim 2467 (17 October 2008).
[37] R v Chambers [2008] EWCA Crim 2467 (17 October 2008).
[38] World Bank, ‘Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) - Kenya’.
[39] Nciko, ‘Ignorance of the law is no defence’, 28.
[40] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 3.
[41] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Sections 7(1)(c) and 7(1)(g).
[42] Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, ‘Draft National Legal Aid and Awareness Policy’, Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, May 2015, 15; European Union and UNDP, ‘Programme for Legal Empowerment and Aid Delivery in Kenya’, European Union and UNDP, 2020, 3.
[43] Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, ‘Draft National Legal Aid and Awareness Policy’, 16; European Union and UNDP, ‘Programme for Legal Empowerment and Aid Delivery in Kenya’, 3.
[44] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 2.
[45] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 7(1)(l).
[46] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 30(a).
[47] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 43.
[48] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 65.
[49] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 2.
[50] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 3(c).
[51] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 7(1)(k).
[52] Adrian Kamotho Njenga v Kenya School of Law, Petition 398 of 2017, Judgment of the High Court at Nairobi (2017) eKLR, para 24.
[53] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 43; Legal Aid (General) Regulations (Legal Notice 86 of 2022), Regulation 11(1).
[54] Thomas Obel Hansen, ‘Access to justice and legal aid in East Africa: Comparative report’, Danish Institute for Human Rights, 2011, 17-18; Damaris Kemunto, ‘Legal and regulatory gaps inherent to the implementation of the Legal Aid Act’, International Commission of Jurists Kenya, 6 March 2024, < https://icj-kenya.org/news/legal-and-regulatory-gaps-inherent-to-the-implementation-of-the-legal-aid-act/ > accessed 11 March 2026.
[55] Open Budget Kenya, ‘National Legal Aid Services budget in 2025’, Open Budget Kenya, 2025, < https://openbudget.or.ke/project/1253000700_national_legal_aid_services/2025 > accessed 1 June 2026.
[56] Open Budget Kenya, ‘National Legal Aid Service budget in 2024’, Open Budget Kenya, 2024, < https://openbudget.or.ke/project/1252000900_National_Legal_Aid_Service/2024/ > accessed 1 June 2026; National Treasury and Economic Planning, ‘Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector Report: Medium Term Expenditure Framework 2024/2025-2026/2027’, National Treasury and Economic Planning, 2023, 27 and 190.
[57] National Council on the Administration of Justice, ‘Administration of justice in Kenya annual report 2023-2024’, National Council on the Administration of Justice, 2024, 61; Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice, ‘Draft National Legal Aid and Awareness Policy’, 16.
[58] The Legal Aid Code of Conduct for Accredited Legal Aid Providers (Legal Notice 186 of 2021), Section 4.
[59] The Legal Aid Code of Conduct for Accredited Legal Aid Providers (Legal Notice 186 of 2021), Section 4.
[60] National Legal Aid Service, ‘Creation of legal awareness’, National Legal Aid Service, nd, < https://www.nlas.go.ke/creation-legal-awareness > accessed 11 March 2026.
[61] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171, Article 14(3)(d). Kenya ratified the ICCPR on 1 May 1972.
[62] United Nations General Assembly, Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems, 20 December 2012, A/RES/67/187, Principle 1.
[63] Antoinette Kankindi and Victor Chimbwanda, ‘Legal education and its contemporary challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa’, 5(1) Strathmore Law Journal (2021) 146.
[64] Muna Ndulo, ‘Legal education in Africa in the era of globalisation and structural adjustment’, 20(3) Penn State International Law Review (2002) 489.
[65] National Treasury and Economic Planning, ‘Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector Report: Medium Term Expenditure Framework 2024/2025-2026/2027’, 27 and 190.
[66] Christine Alai, Remarks at the SLRC @ 10 Symposium, nd, on file with the author.
[67] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 2.
[68] Legal Aid Act (No 6 of 2016), Section 7(1)(g).
[69] Philip Iya, ‘Fighting Africa’s poverty and ignorance through clinical legal education: Shared experiences with new initiatives for the 21st century’, 1 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education (2000) 25.
[70] Kabarak University Law School, CLACLE First Annual Report 2025-2026, Kabarak University Law School, Nakuru, 2026, 7.
[71] Kabarak University Law School, CLACLE First Annual Report 2025-2026, 12-13.
[72] Kabarak University Law School, CLACLE First Annual Report 2025-2026, 15.
[73] Kabarak University Law School, CLACLE First Annual Report 2025-2026, 20-25.
[74] Kabarak University Law School, CLACLE First Annual Report 2025-2026, 21.
