SPEECH BY THE HON. MR. JUSTICE WILLY MUTUNGA, SC, CHIEF JUSTICE/PRESIDENT, SUPREME COURT
OF KENYA ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE FOR FIDA-UGANDA ON THE 8TH
SEPTEMBER, 2011
This great honour that FIDA-U has bestowed upon me makes me reflect on the Matthew 13: 57. “...A
prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.” My reflection is simply
one of interpretation because I have the honour from the people of Kenya and my own house! But then I
have not laid a foundation stone for a project in my country and this where the relevance of FIDA-U
action comes in. All in all, however, I love East Africa that now includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania,
Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan. I hope that Somalia will soon be part of this great community. With
this honour I feel immortalized, a great feeling when one is alive because once gone you do not know
whether the plague will wither away or be defaced! I have the same fear of plagues as I have of statues.
In my lifetime I have seen both come down with predictable regularity.
The words on the foundation plague, Laying the foundation for human rights states and societies in
Africa, is an aspiration, but also a dream that I have seen over decades becoming a reality. Our
constitutions are now pegged on the human rights and social justice paradigms that have a vision of
human rights states and societies. Such states and societies are expected to move us from imperial
presidencies and dictatorships into democracies that value people’s participation, their socio-economic
and cultural rights, accountable and value laden leaderships at all levels of our societies; and nationalistic
spirits that will challenge head on foreign domination, enslavement and oppression. Our constitutions
also address challenges to our nationhood and the creation of economies that make our societies
modern, independent and progressive.
While the vocabulary of revolution seems to have disappeared with the diction of War on Terror we still
have human rights and social justice paradigms as the basis of revisiting paradigms of socialism and
capitalism that scholars tell us were buried under the rubble of the collapsed Berlin Wall in 1989 and the
disorders caused by the financial crises of 2008. Human rights and social justice paradigms have their
limitations. It is the transformative potential that such scholars as Mamdani and Shivji have emphasized
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that all human rights activists need to focus on. I know FIDA-U has the leadership to look at these
ideological and political perspectives of the paradigms in question. The foundation plague will constantly
and continously remind us of this as we build a home for FIDA-U, a hallmark of the permanency,
irrevocability and irreversibility of the human rights and women’s rights movement that FIDA-U has
undertaken for decades.
The next frontiers of human rights activism are here with us and they relate to marginalization. Focusing
on the poverty of our people, prioritizing their economic, social, cultural, and political rights is a frontier
we must confront head on. It means that our hitherto narrow middle class human rights movements will
have to build lasting bridges with our grassroots counterparts on the basis of equality and respect. We
spent energies and time in five star hotels because the ruling classes in our region did not allow us any
other options. Now we have fought and succeeded in demanding our rights of movement and association
although we cannot take them for granted. We should see less of the workshopping in hotels, less of the
flip charts and tooth picks as we now move to the country sides and make sure our people own and
protect the human rights and social justice messages.
The other frontier of marginalization is the gay rights movement. Gay rights are human rights. Here I am
simply confining my statement in the context of human rights and social justice paradigms and avoiding
the controversy that exists in our constitutions and various legislation. As far as I know human rights
principles that we work on do not allow us to implement human rights selectively. We need clarity on
this issue within the human rights movement if we are to face the challenges that are spearheaded by
powerful political and religious forces in our midst. I find the arguments made by some of our human
rights activists, the so-called moral arguments, simply rationalizations for using human rights principles
opportunistically and selectively. We need to bring together the opposing view points in the movement
on this issue for final and conclusive debate.
I thank the FIDA-U movement, membership, leadership and its national, regional and global networks for
the honour bestowed on me. I am very proud of this honour and I will never take it for granted.
Dr. Willy Mutunga, SC
Chief Justice/President, Supreme Court of Kenya
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