Omtatah challenges time limitation on historical land injustice suits

Activist Okiya Omtatah has moved to court to challenge a section of the law that limits the period within which victims of historical land injustices can make compensation claims.

Mr Omtatah argues it is not practically possible that the National Land Commission (NLC) will have addressed the victims' grievances captured in reports such as Ndung’u, Akiwumi, Kiliku, Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) and the standard gauge railway (SRC) by May 2022 when the 10-year limit lapses.

The timelines began running from the commencement of the NLC Act on May 2, 2012.

Mr Omtatah says the commission became fully functional in 2015 and has largely been underfunded, making it difficult for it to meet the deadline.

He also argues that the 10-year time limit in section 15(11) is just to take effect on May 1, 2022 and slam the door on all claims of historical land injustices.

He is also challenging the validity of time limits within which Kenyans can review the legality of grants on public land.

In the suit certified as urgent by Justice Weldon Korir, Mr Omtatah argues that the statutory limits are unconstitutional.

“The petitioner reasonably suspects that Parliament deliberately imposed the impugned time limits on the Commission to advance improper motives and corrupt practices of benefiting those responsible for historical land injustices at the heart of Kenya’s poverty project,” he said.

According to Mr Omtatah, the five-year time limit in sections 14(1) and 15(3) of the Act has already taken effect and the public access to justice by slamming the door on the commission to review grants and dispositions of public land, to establish the propriety or legality and process a historical land claim.

Further, he says the three- year time limit in section 15(10), which imposes a validity period of three years on each and every relief granted in every determination of historical land injustice made by the commission, is illegal.