8 East Africa

Abstract

The East African dependencies of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya were the location of the final stage in the development of the Colonial Office policy on bills of rights. In Kenya, there was a minority European settler community that wanted a bill of rights, so the British Government agreed to a bill of rights for Kenya's pre self-government constitution of 1960. Once it was decided that a bill of rights would be the main protection for the European population in Kenya at independence, the British Government decided to use Tanganyika to establish a precedent for Kenya. But Tanganyika firmly rejected a bill of rights despite pressure from the Colonial Office. The British Government then obtained its bill of rights precedent for Kenya without controversy in the Ugandan independence constitution. Finally in Kenya's independence constitution of 1963, a bill of rights to protect the European settlers was inserted without local dissent.