The National Assembly will partner with the National Council for Law Reporting towards the development of a Kenya Laws database. The initiative is geared towards transforming how the public interacts with legal resources, to enhance public knowledge on Kenyan laws, as well as preserve the legislative history of the country, and the development process of Kenyan laws.

This emerged this afternoon during an engagement between a team from the National Assembly led by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Samuel Njoroge hosted a delegation from Council led by Ms. Janet Munywoki, a Senior Editor and Deputy CEO, at the Council.

Affirming the National Assembly’s commitment in the collaboration , Mr. Njoroge acknowledged the impact that Kenya Law has made towards enabling access to legal resources to government institutions as well as to the public.

“Having served in the Kenya Law Board, I am always amazed of how lean a team your establishment has, and how with meagre resources you have made a huge impact with regard to providing access to legal information”, he said.

He however urged the Council whose brand name is Kenya Law, to bring on board the Office of the Attorney General and the Government Printer to ensure all stakeholders are involved in the project. 

On her part, Ms. Munywoki hailed the on-going process of creating the database, adding that it would aid with the traceability of all the Kenyan laws right from inception (including its attendant amendments) to its current status. She disclosed that the initiative also seeks to breakdown the various forms in which a law has existed in the past, and highlight any sections of it that may have been annulled or declared unconstitutional. 

She also noted that the Council’s partnership with Parliament as a primary stakeholder would help speed up the process of accessing legal resources. The team was accompanied by Mr. Greg Kempe the co-founder of Laws. Africa a non-profit organization that is offering support to the Council in the project. 

“We are seeking partnership with Parliament in this initiative because, one, we are cognizant that Parliament is our primary stakeholder, and secondly, it would speed up the process of accessibility with regard to the history of any law enacted”, she explained.

The collaboration also targets to develop a legislative drafting tool and to help improve the National Assembly’s Bills’ Tracker to become more user friendly and accurate with regard to how it displays of legislative output.

The move, the Council believes, will help them deliver on their mission of providing universal access to public legal information by monitoring and reporting on the development of jurisprudence for the promotion of the rule of law. Besides improving access to legal resources, the move is also aimed at making the legislative process interesting and better. 

Kenya Law is mandated to monitor and report on the development of Kenya’s jurisprudence through the publication of the Kenya Law Reports. The organization also revises, consolidates and publishes the Laws of Kenya.