Governor Joseph Lenku on Monday said land reforms in Kajiado county have been recognised by the Judiciary and other stakeholders in the justice system.
He remarked in his keynote address during the opening of the 2nd National Conference on Alternative Justice System at Tangaza University College, Karen.
Lenku said so far, the Alternative Justice Ssystem committees in the county’s various regions have received 143 disputes and managed to resolve 70 of them.
“For that, I'm grateful. I'm particularly glad to speak on the topic of Alternative Justice Systems in access to natural resources for reasons that most of you probably already appreciate,” Lenku said.
The Maa community, Lenku said, more than any community in Kenya routinely traversed, domesticated and named nearly half of the places in the country.
“The Lords of East Africa is a significantly marginalised community with no access to the natural resources in most of the lands they historically relied on for their livelihood," he said.
Lenku said Kajiado and the other predominantly Maa counties are fully cognisant of the prominence of existing and prevailing reality over historical records.
"In any event, I'm aware that historical injustices particularly as it relates to land may be most graphic among the pastoralist communities but is not unique to them," he said.
The governor said other communities, most notably those in the Mt Kenya region and the tea planting regions of the central Rift Valley have outstanding issues over unjustly lost lands.
"I refer to this history as a way of sketching out the context in which my county and various other communities in Kenya view the concept of an Alternative Justice System in Access to Natural Resources,” he said.
In using the AJS to gain access to natural resources is an acknowledgement of historical injustices, an appreciation of the impracticality of changing the past and the embracing of the opportunity to fashion the future in a manner that does not perpetuate ancient injustices, the county boss noted.
Lenku said AJS implies justice achieved by an avenue or system that is outside of the conventional or standard justice system.
"In our case as a nation, alternative justice implies justice achieved by a system or systems outside of our rigid, legalistic and slow-moving courts system,” he said.
Lenku said where AJS relates to access to natural resources, it follows naturally that the most prevalent and most easily exploitable form of natural resource such as land, should be a key consideration of any effort to achieve justice.