Kenya is in the midst of land reforms that include moving decades old records online
By Kevin Mwanza
NAIROBI May 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan lawyers have filed a lawsuit halting a government initiative to fast-track land titles by processing them online, which they say has been launched without proper consultation.
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) sued the land ministry after it issued an order on April 8 to
The LSK argued that the process risks being corrupted, as well as reversed by subsequent governments unless it is backed by
"They are putting the cart before the horse," LSK president Allen Gichuhi said on Monday.
Gichuhi added that complying with the order could invalidate thousands of land cases pending in the courts, as contested titles could be considered genuine once they are
Kenya is in the midst of land reforms that include moving
Lands Minister Farida Karoney said the initiative would cut out corruption and allow more people to secure their land rights.
Around two-thirds of Kenya's land is customarily owned by communities without
The government argues that
Karoney said her ministry is working with the national parliament to pass regulations that would enable the easy titling of land, with a particular focus on community-owned property.
The regulations will allow for the
"We have a slight
Gichuhi said that the process of moving documents online has so far been slow, making it a lengthy process for land transactions that previously took a few days or weeks.
"Our clients are suffering. Transactions are stalling," he said. "Previously it used to take about three weeks (to transfer a title) but now it takes a month or more."
Kenya is also exploring ways of moving its land registry on to a blockchain platform, which is a ledger of digital transactions that make records secure and easily verifiable, Karoney said.
Rwanda is one of the few African nations that have managed to move all their land records online and is considering introducing blockchain.
(Reporting by Kevin Mwanza; Editing by Jared Ferrie; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, resilience and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
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