Justice Joel Ngugi became a household name last week after he declared the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020, unconstitutional.
He, alongside four other judges, cited illegalities committed during the drafting and formulation of the Building Bridges Initiative process, dismissing the proposed supreme law changes as null and avoid.
Ngugi presided over the five-judge bench that delivered the decision on Thursday last week. The other judges on the bench were justices George Odunga, Jairus Ngaah, Teresia Matheka and Chacha Mwita. They ruled in favour of eight petitioners who sought to bar the bill from proceeding to a referendum.
The bench has attracted both criticism and admiration. Critics say it overstepped its mandate but those in support say Ngugi and his team are mavericks who stood up for the common good.
So who exactly is Justice Ngugi?
Before the ruling that sent shock waves across the political landscape, 48-year-old Ngugi was mainly known within judicial circles.
Born on October 30, 1972, in Loitokitok, Kajiado, the High Court judge owes his career and present life to his upbringing and early schooling in the Rift Valley county. From here, he proceeded to Alliance High School, then to the University of Nairobi, where his law career was nurtured.
“There (Kajiado), I gained the values of who I am today. And I am proud that I went to Alliance High School where my values were tended to and my individuality allowed to grow. I became strong in mind, body and spirit to serve and lead fellow men faithfully and joyfully,” Ngugi told the Star.
He prides himself as a family man. "I'm married to a law professor and I have three children—a son, 12, and seven-year-old twins (a boy and a girl)," he told the Star.
Justice (Prof) Ngugi obtained a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B) from the UoN in 1996; a postgraduate diploma in Legal Education from the Kenya School of Law; and his master's and doctoral law degrees from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1998 and 2002 respectively.
Between March 1994 and September 1994, while still an undergraduate student, he opted to give back to his Loitoktok town community as a teacher. He taught English, Literature and Christian Religious Education. He was also a co-patron of drama and music clubs and directed two winning entries to Kenya Secondary Schools Music Festivals in the category of dramatised poems, choral and solo verses.
Ngugi has been decorated with several awards and has worn many hats in the course of his education and career.
At Harvard, he won the John Gallup Laylin Prize in international law in 2002 for his doctoral dissertation. He has also received many fellowships and grants from Harvard Law School, including the Clark Byse Fellowship (for academic distinction among graduate students) and the European Law Research Center Seminar Fellowship at the Harvard Law School.
He has also been awarded research grants by the Institute for the Study of World Politics, Washington, DC, and the MacArthur – Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Justice Ngugi is licensed to practise law in Kenya and Massachusetts, USA. In the US, he practised law as a transactional and international litigation associate in the Boston office of Foley Hoag, LLP, a full-service law firm with more than 300 lawyers.
In Kenya, he has held different positions and performed different tasks, including representing the Chief Justice in the Kenya Council for Legal Education and the Kenya School of Law Board.
Justice was appointed a judge of the High Court of Kenya in September 2011. He presently serves as presiding judge in the High Court in Nakuru and chairs the National Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Alternative Justice Systems Policy.
He is a former head of the Judiciary Transformation Secretariat that was responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Judiciary Transformation Framework 2012-16—the blueprint that guided comprehensive reforms in the Judiciary after the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution under then-CJ Willy Mutunga.
Ngugi also served as director of the Kenya Judiciary Training Institute in 2012-16—a time of rapid growth at the institute. His many achievements at the JTI and JTF Secretariat included leading Judiciary transformation culture change workshops attended by all Judiciary employees. At the JTI, Justice Ngugi institutionalised the idea that continuous judicial education is imperative for a well-performing judiciary.
Justice Ngugi has also served in many major committees and task forces that have generated major judicial policies or guidelines. They include the Judiciary Taskforce on Alternative Justice Systems (which he chaired); the Steering Committee of Active Case Management; and the Technical Committee on Criminal Procedure Benchbook (which produced the Criminal Procedure Benchbook in 2018).
Others are the Judicial Task Force on Sentencing (which produced the Sentencing Policy and Guidelines in 2016); the Taskforce on Bail/Bond (which produced the Bail and Bond Policy in 2015); and the Committee on Judiciary Disability Mainstreaming Policy (which produced the Judiciary Disability Mainstreaming Policy in 2016).
Justice Ngugi was previously a presiding judge at the High Court in Kiambu and a judge in Machakos. He has served in several high-profile multi-judge bench cases, including the Ballot Tender (Al-Ghurair) Case in 2017; the Lapsset Case; the SGR (Mombasa Port) case; and the Mui Basin Case.
As a single judge, he has handled several high-profile murder cases, including the Kihiu Mwiri cases and the Principal Murder (Jane Muthoni Mucheru) Case.
Prior to joining the Judiciary, Justice Ngugi was an associate professor of law at the University of Washington (Seattle) where he won several teaching awards, including two as professor of the year.
At the University of Washington, he chaired the University-wide African Studies Program. He also served in major committees at the university's School of Law, including the Dean Search Committee, the Faculty Appointments Committee and the Academic Standards Committee.
He was the director of the African Studies Program’s Study Abroad Program and Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program Grant by the US Federal Government.
His teaching and research interests were in Law and Development; International Law; Human Rights; and Contracts Law. Justice Ngugi is widely published in these areas. He has published more than 10 articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He has also served as a teaching assistant at Harvard Law School and Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2000.
Justice Ngugi has made more than 100 scholarly and professional presentations at conferences, colloquia and professional workshops and gatherings. He has guest-lectured and given public lectures at Harvard University; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Kabarak School of Law; Strathmore Business School; Riara Law School; Cornell Law School, the University of Arizona School of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada; and University of Washington's School of Public Health.
From May to August 2000, he served as a legal officer of the Central Civil Registry at the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. He drafted regulations and laws setting up and governing the registry, performed a legal analysis and recommended eligibility parameters for applicants to be included in the register of habitual residents of Kosovo in specific cases.