Reflections on the “Autonomous Alternative Justice System Institutions” in Kenya’s Alternative Justice Systems Policy Frameworks

Abstract

On 27th August 2020, the Kenyan Judiciary together with its partners formally launched the AJS Framework Policy and the AJS Baseline Policy (AJS Policy Frameworks) which coincided with the ten-year anniversary of the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya. The launch of the policy was awaited with huge expectations, as it was hoped that it would provide an appropriate framework for the operationalisation of “Autonomous Alternative Justice System” (AAJS) which is one of the institutions approved by the AJS Policy Frameworks to anchor Kenya’s emergent alternative justice system. This paper evaluates some of the options adopted by the AJS Policy Frameworks in the conception and implementation of the AAJS. Comparative lessons from the jurisprudence of ‘customary arbitration’ in Nigerian and Ghana, which are similar to the AAJS, are utilised to argue for more care and caution in the operationalisation of the AAJS Institutions in Kenya.