The Kenya’s Judiciary has roots in the East African Order in Council of 1897 and the Crown regulations. The Kenyan legal system was shaped by English legal system occasioned by the British administration that lasted over six decades where judges and the bar, were exclusively European.

Before 1895, when Kenya was declared a British Protectorate, the country had no structured legal system. The territory was administered via the Imperial British East Africa Company, which carried out all the obligations undertaken by the British Government under any treaty or agreement made with another State. In 1896, the territory became known as the East African Protectorate. It was then renamed Kenya Colony and Protectorate in 1920 and remained so until 1963 when Kenya became an independent state.

With the settlement of the British in the East African Protectorate, there arose a need for a legislative and administrative system to govern the inhabitants. For ease of administration, the British settlers imported laws and systems of governance from Britain, and British laws that had been codified in India, to apply to the East African Protectorate. These laws were mainly for the benefit of the settlers and were applied without regard to the already existing native society.

The natives were allowed to practice African Customary law while the Hindus who had emigrated from India, to practice Hindu Customary law in the area of personal law as the Muslims and Arabs communities practiced Muslim Law. Kenya’s Judiciary was hence based on a tripartite division of subordinate courts; that is, Native courts, Muslim courts and those staffed by administrative officers and magistrates. A dual system of superior courts that lasted for only five years was also established – one court for Europeans, and the other for Africans.

The colonial authorities empowered village elders, headmen and chiefs to settle disputes as they had done in the pre-colonial period. These traditional dispute settlement organs gradually evolved into tribunals. They were accorded official recognition in 1907, when the Native Courts Ordinance was promulgated. This ordinance established native tribunals that were intended to serve each of the ethnic groups in Kenya