“The division between the two professions was well recognised by the end of the 16th century and by the end of the 17th was quite firm….While the solicitor spends much of his time trying to keep his clients out of court, there inevitably comes a time when he needs the services of what the Americans call ‘the trial lawyer’. In England, this is the barrister….” – Richard du Cann, The Art of the Advocate, 32 (Revised Edition, 1993)
On 20 June 2011, Willy Mutunga assumed office as the first Chief Justice of Kenya under the 2010 Constitution. A former president of the Law Society of Kenya, Mutunga possessed a doctorate degree in law and had worked as a law teacher. He had also lived in internal banishment, and was a former political detainee and exile. He came to the position from a role in philanthropy as the regional representative of the Ford Foundation in East Africa and was a principal facilitator of the new constitution.
Chief Justice Mutunga’s unusual resume gave him a grounded view of law and its institutions in post-colonial society. It also equipped him to try something both necessary and ambitious. Kenya’s institutions of the law had been discredited under the old system. They desperately needed to be re-fashioned. Chief Justice Mutunga’s arrival in this role seemed timely.
