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For the first time in twenty years Kenya Law has revised and consolidated all the Laws of Kenya.

Kenya Law has launched a revised, consolidated and updated edition of the Laws of Kenya in print, online and on CD-ROM. The online edition is available free of charge on www.kenyalaw.org

 

Who is Kenya Law?

Kenya Law is the brand name of the National Council for Law Reporting , an award-winning service state corporation in the Judiciary, established under the National Council for Law Reporting Act, Cap.1A.

The mandate of Kenya Law is:

- To monitor and report on the development of Kenyan jurisprudence through the publication of the Kenya Law Reports;
- To revise, consolidate and publish the Laws of Kenya; and
- To undertake such other related publications and perform such other functions as may be conferred by law.

Kenya Law is led by Council of Members chaired by the Chief Justice and has a secretariat with members of staff led by a Chief Executive/Editor.

 

What is contained in the Laws of Kenya (Revised and Consolidated Edition)?

The Laws of Kenya (Revised and Consolidated Edition) contains all the laws of the Republic of Kenya. It contains the full text of Acts of Parliament (statutes) and regulations (subsidiary legislation) made under those Acts with all the amendments to all the laws having been incorporated through the process of revision and consolidation.

 

How can one access this product?

Cost:

While the online edition is provided free of charge, Kenya Law will charge a highly subsidised nominal fee for the CD-ROM and print editions to recover the enormous cost of the law revision exercise and to sustain the cost of keeping the content updated.

Accessibility:

The online database is designed for universal acess. It is based on an open and interoperable technology (XML), can be accessed using a variety of devices and technology platforms and has features that make it easily accessible to persons with visual disabilities.

 

What is Law Revision and Consolidation?

Law Revision and Consolidation is the editorial process of incorporating newly enacted laws, amendments and repeals to Laws passed by Parliament.

This exercise is usually followed by a release of revised and consolidated laws in an edition accompanied by a legislative supplement which gives directions of use and captures the history of the amendments.

 

When was the last time the Laws were revised and consolidated?

The last exercise for the revision and consolidation was undertaken by the Attorney General’s office in 1989.

 

Are these the official Laws of Kenya?

Yes. Through Legal Notice Number 29 of 2009, the Attorney General delegated to Kenya Law the power of law revision conferred by the Revision of the Laws Act, Cap.1.

Kenya Law is the official publisher of the Laws of Kenya as well as other forms of public legal information and the exercise of the revision and consolidation of the Laws was been undertaken with the authority and in collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General.

 

Is the electronic version of the Laws official?

Yes, the Revision of Laws Act (Cap. 1) section 6(3) and the Kenya Information and Communications Act (Cap. 411A) section 83G provides for the legal recognition of an electronic version of the Laws of Kenya.

 

How often will the Laws be updated?

The online edition is updated on a daily basis. The updated versions of the print and CD-ROM editions will be released at least once every year.

 

What technology has been used to publish the Laws online?

The online database of the Laws of Kenya is based on Extensible Markup Language(XML). XML has emerged as an international standard and has design goals that emphasize openness, simplicity, generality and usability of information. XML also emphasizes technological neutrality and is compatible across the widest range of communication media.

As an institution that values open access to information, XML was a natural choice for Kenya Law.

 

What technology has been used to publish the Laws of Kenya on CD?

Kenya Law has used Rocket Folio Views for CD/DVD publishing. It offers a high-performance information retrieval software tool that provides robust text- searching within and across large collections of information.

The technology behind the software makes massive volumes of information easy to manage and navigate and enable a user to quickly find the information needed regardless of the complexity of the data.

 

What is unique about the online database?

The online edition of the Laws of Kenya is the first database of its kind in the world in the sophistication of the technology behind it, the scope of its content and the ease of navigation. The database has the unique Point-In-Time functionality. This feature enables a user to view the law as it was at a particular point in time.

 

Can I download the Laws?

Yes, from the online edition.
One can donwload individual Acts and other pieces of legislation for free in different formats, including PDF, XML and DOC.

 

What is Creative Commons and what is its association with Kenya Law?

Creative Commons (CC) (www.creativecommons.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding the range of creative works available for others to share and build on legally. The organization has released a number of information labels (called licences) designed to enable the publishers and creators of other works to communicate with clarity and simplicity what copyright restrictions, if any, apply to their work.

Kenya Law is an affiliate and partner of Creative Commons and a member of the Creative Commons-Kenya team. Kenya Law is also a member of the Free Access to Law Movement (www.worldlii.org). In these two roles, Kenya Law embraces and champions the open sharing of information, knowledge and creativity.

 

What copyright restrictions apply to the use of the Laws of Kenya?

As a member of the Free Access to Law Movement, at Kenya Law we believe that:

Public legal information is part of the common heritage of humanity and maximizing access to this information promotes Justice and the Rule of Law;

Public legal information is common property and should be accessible to all;

As an organization that has the public mandate to publish public legal information, we should not impose unfair restrictions on the use and reuse of that information by other persons.

By law, no person may claim copyright to the text of the Laws of Kenya. In that regard, while the text of the Laws of Kenya is in the public domain, the design, structure, metadata and format of the Laws as presented by Kenya Law is subject to a few restrictions and it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

This means that: You are free:

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to Remix — to adapt the work

to make commercial use of the work

 

Under the following conditions:

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

 

With the understanding that:

Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:

Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;

The author’s moral rights;

Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Notice - For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

For more information go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 

More Information on the law revision project.

The revision, consolidation, publishing and printing of the Laws of Kenya was done by the members of staff of the Laws of Kenya Department at Kenya Law under a project sponsored by the Financial and Legal Sector Technical Assistance Project (FLSTAP), a government project co-funded through a grant from the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and a credit from the World Bank, administered by the Ministry of Finance. Technical support for the project was provided by the Legislative Drafting Department in the Attorney General’s Office, the Kenya Law Reform Commission, the Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA) and LexisNexis.

 

The Laws of Kenya Revised Edition 2012 by the numbers:

0	The cost of accessing the Laws of Kenya online.
1st	The world’s most advanced, openly accessible and updated database of the full text of national legislation
1st	The first laws database in the world to feature Point-In-Time functionality.
1	The number of clicks it takes to navigate from one Act to the other on the electronic database of the Laws of Kenya .
5 seconds	The time it takes to do a full-text search for a word or phrase across the entire collection in the electronic database of the Laws of Kenya.
22	The number of print volumes forming one set of the Laws.
23	The number of the members of staff of Kenya Law who worked on the project.
451	The number of Acts contained in the Laws as at August 2013
5, 040	The estimated number of extra working hours put in by the members of the Laws of Kenya department of Kenya Law working on the law revision and consolidation exercise.
27,222	Online The total number of pages contained in the Laws (as at August 2013)
9,091,874	The total number of words contained in the Laws (as at August 2013)

0	The cost of accessing the Laws of Kenya online.
1st	The world’s most advanced, openly accessible and updated database of the full text of national legislation
1st	The first laws database in the world to feature Point-In-Time functionality.
1	The number of clicks it takes to navigate from one Act to the other on the electronic database of the Laws of Kenya .
5 seconds	The time it takes to do a full-text search for a word or phrase across the entire collection in the electronic database of the Laws of Kenya.
22	The number of print volumes forming one set of the Laws.
23	The number of the members of staff of Kenya Law who worked on the project.
451	The number of Acts contained in the Laws as at August 2013
5, 040	The estimated number of extra working hours put in by the members of the Laws of Kenya department of Kenya Law working on the law revision and consolidation exercise.
27,222	Online The total number of pages contained in the Laws (as at August 2013)
9,091,874	The total number of words contained in the Laws (as at August 2013)