The High Court Tuesday extended orders stopping the deployment of Kenya police to Haiti until the petition is heard and determined.
The court gave November 9 as the day the hearing of the case starts. Tuesday October 24 was the mention date to also check on compliance on the orders granted earlier on in a case filed by Thirdway Alliance boss Ekuru Aukot
The move means the plans to deploy an interim team of about 200 officers from the special squads to Haiti by November will not happen.
The cops have been training at various bases including Nandi Hills, Gilgil, Magadi and Kitui in readiness for the mission.
Top government officials plan a trip to Haiti to legally ratify the plan and open an embassy there. The team will be led by Prime Cabinet Secretary and foreign affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and national security advisor Monicah Juma.
Justice Chacha Mwita had on October 9 stopped interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki from deploying the police to Haiti.
Read: Cabinet Ratifies Deployment of Kenya Police to Haiti
Aukot sued President William Ruto and his administration in a bid to block the peacekeeping mission that will see the deployment of at least 1,000 police officers to the gang-ridden nation.
He claimed that Kenya’s bid to lead a UN-approved force into the Caribbean island nation is in gross violation of the Constitution.
He faulted Ruto for planning to deploy police officers outside Kenya at a time the force has been unable to curb tribal violence in Lamu County, where members of one community have been targeted for death.
He argued that Kenya has not ratified any law or treaty to allow deployment of police officers outside the country.
Ruto is listed as a respondent alongside the National Security Council, Inspector-General of Police Japhet Koome, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula, and Attorney-General Justin Muturi.
Aukot also asked the High Court to declare sections 107, 108 and 109 of the National Police Service Act unconstitutional, as they clash with the Constitution.
Read Also: ODM Urges Gov’t to Reconsider Deployment of Officers to Haiti
The sections of the police service laws allow the President to deploy police officers to other countries that have good legal rapport with Kenya.
Dr Aukot argues that the three laws are in conflict with Articles 240 and 243 of the Constitution. Article 240 gives authority to the National Security Council to deploy national forces outside the country.
Article 243 establishes the National Police Service and gives it authority to operate throughout Kenya, while allowing Parliament to enact further laws to govern its enforcement.
Aukot holds that Article 243 restricts the work of police officers to within Kenya’s borders.
The Cabinet on October 13 ratified the deployment of the team to Haiti as sanctioned by the National Security Council.
Read Also: Setback as Court Stops Deployment of Police to Haiti for 2 Weeks
This gave further approval for a motion to be tabled in Parliament for discussion and approval of the plans.
“As part of the Multinational Security Support Mission pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution, the Cabinet ratified the deployment of the National Police Service to Haiti as sanctioned by the National Security Council,” read part of a resolution.
The brief said the Resolution of the National Security Council on the proposed deployment has been submitted for approval by Parliament, pursuant to Article 240 of the Constitution.
Inspector General of the National Police Service Japhet Koome confirmed the first group of police officers to be deployed to Haiti has kicked off a strenuous training in Kenya.
More than 1,000 officers will be picked from the Rapid Deployment Unit, Anti Stock Theft Unit, General Service Unit, and Border Patrol Unit to form a larger team for deployment with the exercise expected to happen soon.
Haitian gangs run schools, clinics and foundations in place of an increasingly absent government, even as their criminal rackets help gang leaders amass funds and afford luxury homes with swimming pools in the hemisphere’s poorest country.
That was one of the findings of a comprehensive United Nations report published on Monday.
Read Also: Police Start to Pick Team for Haiti Peace Mission
“Gangs are getting stronger, richer, better armed and more autonomous,” according to a 156-page report from a U.N. experts panel. It pointed to lucrative arms trafficking largely from the United States that provides gangsters with deadly arsenals.
The panel blasted an “ineffectual” U.N. arms embargo and noted that few countries respond to requests to trace seized firearms.
Gangs have consolidated, coalescing in the capital around the G9 and G-Pep alliances, while fighting escalates in key northern farmlands.
The report concluded that gangs frequently use rape to terrorize and extort victims, demand money and control food supplies. They are also blamed for carrying out indiscriminate killings and hundreds of kidnappings, demanding ransoms as high as $500,000 for foreigners and prominent figures.
Leaders have used social foundations to project positive images.
They use social media to flaunt luxury lifestyles, but also to instill terror with videos of torture and mutilations, according to the report.
Haiti‘s under-funded national police are “grossly understaffed” as well as “ill-equipped and ill-trained.”
Since April, a vigilante self-defense movement known as Bwa Kale has executed hundreds of suspected gang members, and the report also blames the movement for committing crimes and morphing into new gangs.
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