Environment and Lands Court in Nakuru has extended conservatory orders barring the government from evicting the minority Ogiek community from Mau Forest Complex to late January next year.
Lady Justice Lynette Omollo said the extensions were to allow petitioners including the Ogiek Community and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) time to serve the fourth respondent in the matter.
This was after the court heard that the petitioners were yet to serve Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) with the suit papers.
KWS is the fourth respondent in the petition where the Ogiek community through its chairperson Wilson Memosi and KNCHR protested forceful evictions in the Mau water tower.
Other respondents are the Attorney General, Environment and Forestry Cabinet Secretary, Kenya Forest Service, Inspector General of Police and the Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner.
Ogiek community through Lawyer Victor Kamau claimed that the eviction from their ancestral land was a violation of their rights to property, natural resource, religion, culture, freedom from non-discrimination and development.
“The government is in contempt of court because there is a judgment by three different courts, among them, the Africa Court on Human and People’s Rights declaring that the minority community has a right to Mau Forest as their ancestral land," he said.
In May 2017, the African Court sitting in Arusha declared that the Ogiek had a communal right to their ancestral land and that the evictions violated their property rights.
Kamau alleged that the government continued to harass his clients in different parts of the forest in six sub-counties instead of amicably solving the problem
“Ogiek members in Sasumwani and Nkareta in Maasai Mau have been evicted, their structures destroyed and their cattle are roaming the forest without caretakers,” he said.
Today, Justice Omollo gave the petitioners seven days to serve KWS and another 21 days to exchange responses with the respondents.
She declined a prayer by the plaintiffs to amend the petition and asked to formally apply for the same.
The case will be mentioned on January 23.
