Endless queues for British compensation lawsuit in Bomet and Kericho.

[RV Pundit]

This is a ridiculous claim that doesn't deserve much thinking to dismiss. The county can afford lawyers. Heck they already hired lawyers for this case. The county assembly approved the allocation for legal fees. What is the billable hours...1M dollar per hour?

By choosing to settle with MauMau, the British set a precedent that others will pursue.

Let hear the merit and demerit of the case..not tangential issues like cost of the lawsuit.
 

USA, it is not unusual for lawyers to labour on the basis of "contingency fees".   Elsewhere things are a bit more "straightforward": a deposit + "billable hours".   Lawyer + sucker.   

In the former cases, the "target" might decide that it is less costly to pay rather to litigate---a "nuisance fee" that could well be covered by insurance---but do the "clients" always check the "fine print" to see who's getting the best chunk of any settlement?

Apart from that, such cases can be good for some: brownie points for pro bono work and a "reputational bonus" for a win (even without money coming in).   

[MOON Ki]

This is a ridiculous claim that doesn't deserve much thinking to dismiss. The county can afford lawyers. Heck they already hired lawyers for this case. The county assembly approved the allocation for legal fees. What is the billable hours...1M dollar per hour?

By choosing to settle with MauMau, the British set a precedent that others will pursue.

Let hear the merit and demerit of the case..not tangential issues like cost of the lawsuit.
 

Hiring lawyers is not the issue here; if you have the money, the lawyers will come.   County has money, lawyer come like dog to raw meat.

The real question is this: what will the complainants/victims get? 

You keep citing the British/Mau-Mau case, so let's use that as a "base case".   What exactly have the complainants got/victims there?  (I mean, beyond being able to say "we won!")   If you  can put forth some concrete numbers, then we can have a discussion of a different quality.

You'd like to get more on "the merit and demerit of the case".   That's easily settled, and I repeat:

(a) If it is solely a matter of "principle", then the complainants ought to win.   101%.   On that one, I'm there with them.  All the way.  They should and absolutely must win.  Of course. (I doubt that they will, but that's another matter.)

(b) If they "win" and hope to get something (e.g. money) from that "victory", then that's another matter.   "Billable hours", cleverly done, can take a nice chunk out of the "victory".  Of course, if the "victors" don't mind, then all is well.

So, then.  What's the real outcome of the precedent that the British settled on in the Mau Mau case?   Let's have some concrete figures---judge awards X, victim gets Y---then we can have a more objective discussion.     

Once we are on solid ground with the Mau-Mau case, then we should all be able to see all the gold that is glittering around Bomet and Kericho.

[RV Pundit]

Sometimes you try too much. Try old plain English that goes to the point.

They are victims...and from the queues I have seen possibly 300,000 thousands are expected to signs.

The victims were forcefully evicted by the British Colonial gov from their land without compensation. The most egregious of those crimes  is the 1934 eviction of Talai from Kericho to Gwasii Island in Nyanza.

When the Brits sees the 300,000 victims files..they will want to settle and settle quick. I don't know if MauMau torture is bigger crime to what Brits did in Kericho but last I checked mass displacement was a crime against humanity.

There will be avalanche of cases...I expect the Nandi to take the Brits to court..the Maasai at some point.

British have to pay for their crimes. The crimes that continues to benefit their companies. For Kericho, this for me is a start, to reposes the land that British companies still hold there. We now have moved from hypothesis to real victims.

Hiring lawyers is not the issue here; if you have the money, the lawyers will come.   County has money, lawyer come like dog to raw meat. As you, I imagine, would put it.

The real question is this: what will the complainants/victims get?   

You keep citing the British/Mau-Mau case, so let's use that as a "base case"; what exactly have the complainants got/victims there?  (I mean, beyond being able to say "we won!")   If you  can put forth some concrete numbers, then we can have a discussion of a different quality.

You'd like to get more on "the merit and demerit of the case".   That's easily settled, and I repeat:

(a) If it is solely a matter of "principle", then the complainants ought to win.   101%.   On that one. I'm there with them.  All the way.  They should and absolutely must win.  Of course. (I doubt that they will, but that's another matter.)

(b) If they "win" and hope to get something (e.g. money) from that "victory", then that's another matter.   "Billable hours", cleverly done, can take a nice chunk out of the "victory". 

So, then.  What's the real outcome of the precedent that the British settled on in the Mau Mau case?   Let's have some concrete figures---judge awards X, victim gets Y---then we can have a more objective discussion.     

[MOON Ki]

They are victims...and from the queues I have seen possibly 300,000 thousands are expected to signs.

The victims were forcefully evicted by the British Colonial gov from their land without compensation. The most egregious of those crimes  is the 1934 eviction of Talai from Kericho to Gwasii Island in Nyanza.

When the Brits sees the 300,000 victims files..they will want to settle and settle quick.

I don't doubt any of that.  And I'm astonished that you think I do.   My "question" is actually a simple one.  Let me put in two parts:

(a) What exactly do they hope to get (or wish to get) from this legal action?   

(b) On what basis, have they pinned their hopes or imaginations?

I'm willing to accept the British/Mau-Mau case as some sort of precedent, provided there is a concrete answer to these questions:

(d) Who has got what.?  Precisely, please.

(e) Where, when, and how on (d)?

P.S.  300,000 chucked out of the RV by the Brits? And how many in the PEV, by the Kenyans?

[RV Pundit]

They are suing the Brits for possibly 2 trillion Kshs compensation and an apology. On what basis..that the Brit choose to settle with MauMau rather than face the court. British High court already set the precedent by allowing MauMau to file their case..and that send British Gov wanting to settle. So for now...the matters jurisdiction are already dealt with...the victims just need to proof that they were displaced, killed, tortured and suffered in anyway under colonial gov.

The British can no longer claim legal immunity from past colonial crimes.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/05/mau-mau-veterans-win-torture-case

The court rejected the government's claim that too much time had elapsed for there to be a fair trial, just as it threw out an earlier claim that the Mau Mau veterans should be suing the Kenyan government, not the British.

The government's lawyers accepted that all three were tortured by the colonial authorities. They suffered what their lawyers describe as "unspeakable acts of brutality", including castration, beatings and severe sexual assaults.

After the ruling, the Foreign Office acknowledged it had "potentially significant and far reaching legal implications", and said it was planning to appeal.

This is a decent shot and I'm glad these people are doing something about it. The British Gov is now facing "significant and far reaching legal implications" after they failed to appeal and choose to quietly settle.

[MOON Ki]

They are suing the Brits for possibly 2 trillion Kshs compensation and an apology.

The Mau-Mau case too started with a waving of huge numbers.   Have you managed to bridge the difference between "we are suing for ..." and "the full and final settlement is ..."?    (The bit where all those nice lawyers take their cut can come later.)

On what basis..that the Brit choose to settle with MauMau rather than face the court.

In bold font: so, exactly how much is each Mau Mau victim getting?

British High court already set the precedent by allowing MauMau to file their case..and that send British Gov wanting to settle. So for now...the matters jurisdiction are already dealt with...the victims just need to proof that they were displaced, killed, tortured and suffered in anyway.

And then what?   A declaration of victory?  An apology?

[RV Pundit]

Yes an apology will go along way. But accepting their illegality will open ways to recover the land. The compensation for me should be for the suffering and the land. Mau Mau were paid and they are happy. I'm not sure why you're complaining. But they all got a tidy sum of money. Running into some billions Kshs.

5,000 Mau Mau got 20M dollars. That is a lot of money in Kenya. Most folks did not register because they were thinking that was long shot. In Kericho folks have learned from that and are registering in serious numbers.

And then what?   A declaration of victory?  An apology?

[MOON Ki]

Yes an apology will go along way. But accepting their illegality will open ways to recover the land.

Fair enough on the first point.   As for recovering land, good luck; since the Brits left, fellow Kenyans have f**ked them ten times as hard.

Mau Mau were paid and they are happy. I'm not sure why you're complaining. But they all got a tidy sum of money. Running into some billions Kshs.

I'm not complaining; I'm just curious.   The amount of the award is a public figure.   How much of that actually went to the victims?  I hope you are not suggesting that individuals got "billions Kshs".

[MOON Ki]

5,000 Mau Mau got 20M dollars. That is a lot of money in Kenya.

(I think it would be pounds, not dollars.  I'll have to check.   But we can work with your figures.  Could after the lawyers take their cut, thus translating pounds into dollars.) 

That works out to be about $4,000 per Mau Mau or whatever.   It doesn't strike me as a lot of money, but I will accept that it is, if you insist.   Have those already got their money in hand?   I ask because there have been plenty of noises on that front, with prospects of yet more legal skirmishes.   Take a look at this:

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/11171624/British-law-firm-inflated-Mau-Mau-compensation-costs-to-taxpayer.html

6.6 out of 19.9.   Millions.  Pounds.   That's not small change.  Plenty of billable hours for somebody. That's the sort of thing I was referring to.  Still,  I take it every one is happy except the LSK?

Never mind.  If I may ask: Is this Mau Mau money already flowing in Kenya, getting dispensed on the good things of life?   None of it held in some legal grid-lock or whatever?

[MOON Ki]

Who has has the land that was bought with the loan? That is the question we should ask ourselves.

Good question.   Actually, forget about "giving" and "buying".   In Jomo's time, the president had the power to allocate land to any "worthy and deserving citizen, in need" or something like that.   Lo and behold, as one might say.  And so it came to pass that President Jomo Kenyatta legally handed over good Kenyan land to a very deserving citizen, one Johnstone Kamau.   Said Kamau has siblings and assorted relatives and friends, all worthy, deserving, ... citizens.   Give, give, give.  Land, land, land.

Still, that is separate from the matter of loans or grants or whatever to buy land from the fleeing colonialists.   But there is a relationship to the above: those who got the best deals happened to be the same worthy, deserving, needful whatever & friends.

So.  The Bomet & Kericho case.  On the basis of the sketchy details given here, I don't see how this can possibly get very far (minus the need to pile on those "hours"), but I'm sure RV Pundit will tell us.

[RV Pundit]

Even the 13M pounds that remain is still tidy sum of money for those wazees for the torture and of course the official apology from British gov gives them so form of closure. I don't understand why you would deride these folks for going for what your ICC victims are going for; the same justice. Or well there is no political agenda here.

Or you believe no injustice were committed or folks should get over it?

I cannot think of a more worthy investment from those counties than such a case. If return on investment is 13M pounds for 5K victims....that is about the annual allocation a county receives...and if British are nailed and they should be nailed for this...then they are bound to make 10 times more money on this...so 130M pounds can easily translate to 10 budgetary allocation those counties will ever receive from gov.

Rather than giving that money in form of opaque aid..they should consider compensating all historical injustices committed all over the world during their colonial history.

The British should pay or the beneficiary of that land (tea companies) be forced to pay or give up land. The land kenyatta gave to himself and outsiders in RV I think is a lost cause. It impossible to evict 1-2m folks.Kalenjin have tried that with arrows but there is little success as you well know...those guys settled are equally poor.

The land the British companies own....can easily be got back. Once British admit liability...then it done deal...counties can choose to reposses that land..or well terminate the leases.

5,000 Mau Mau got 20M dollars. That is a lot of money in Kenya.

(I think it would be pounds, not dollars.  I'll have to check.   But we can work with your figures.  Could after the lawyers take their cut, thus translating pounds into dollars.) 

That works out to be about $4,000 per Mau Mau or whatever.   It doesn't strike me as a lot of money, but I will accept that it is, if you insist.   Have those already got their money in hand?   I ask because there have been plenty of noises on that front, with prospects of yet more legal skirmishes.   Take a look at this:

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/11171624/British-law-firm-inflated-Mau-Mau-compensation-costs-to-taxpayer.html

6.6 out of 19.9.   Millions.  Pounds.   That's not small change.  Plenty of billable hours for somebody. That's the sort of thing I was referring to.  Still,  I take it every one is happy except the LSK?

Never mind.  If I may ask: Is this Mau Mau money already flowing in Kenya, getting dispensed on the good things of life?   None of it held in some legal grid-lock or whatever?

[Reticent Solipsist]

Everyone born before 1960 has been queuing to fill in as victims of British Colonial Land grab for weeks now. Yesterday I had to drop somebody by 6pm and the queues were already long. This has been going on I hear for sometime now. This was his third attempt to register. He told me you just pick a tea estate and claim to have been born there before being kicked out.


http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/45000-join-sh2trn-case-against-uk

This was long overdue case.

Will the British pay?



I would urge Prof Chepkwony Kericho governor and initiator of this to go further and Kick the british owned tea companies out of Kericho-Bomet and give shares to everyone who has claimed to be a victim.

With due respect, don't you think it is the African/Kenyan who owes the British and not the other way around? What was the area around Kericho and the rest of Kenya like when the British Crown first set foot there? Let's see: no science, no literacy, no architecture, tropical diseases and myriad pathologies rampant, war and retribution was the accepted way of life, i.e, the norm.

Now contrast all that with what was achieved by that day, December 12th, 1963, when your country attained its in-dependence. The British bequeathed kenya with: viable institutions, a functioning first-rate railway system, a cadre of well trained civil servants, overall decent infrastructure, clean and orderly capital city of Nairobi "Keep your City Clean", an education system almost at par with that in the mother country; you had St. Mary's Nairobi, Duke of York, Prince of Wales, etc, and for the African, decent schools like Alliance, Mangu, Maseno, St.Mary's Yala, etc. Let's not forget a legal system borrowed from the much maligned British.

Yeah, I know, civilization, education, plumbing, law....but other than that what did the British do for us?

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

Everyone born before 1960 has been queuing to fill in as victims of British Colonial Land grab for weeks now. Yesterday I had to drop somebody by 6pm and the queues were already long. This has been going on I hear for sometime now. This was his third attempt to register. He told me you just pick a tea estate and claim to have been born there before being kicked out.


http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/45000-join-sh2trn-case-against-uk

This was long overdue case.

Will the British pay?



I would urge Prof Chepkwony Kericho governor and initiator of this to go further and Kick the british owned tea companies out of Kericho-Bomet and give shares to everyone who has claimed to be a victim.

With due respect, don't you think it is the African/Kenyan who owes the British and not the other way around? What was the area around Kericho and the rest of Kenya like when the British Crown first set foot there? Let's see: no science, no literacy, no architecture, tropical diseases and myriad pathologies rampant, war and retribution was the accepted way of life, i.e, the norm.

Now contrast all that with what was achieved by that day, December 12th, 1963, when your country attained its in-dependence. The British bequeathed kenya with: viable institutions, a functioning first-rate railway system, a cadre of well trained civil servants, overall decent infrastructure, clean and orderly capital city of Nairobi "Keep your City Clean", an education system almost at par with that in the mother country; you had St. Mary's Nairobi, Duke of York, Prince of Wales, etc, and for the African, decent schools like Alliance, Mangu, Maseno, St.Mary's Yala, etc. Let's not forget a legal system borrowed from the much maligned British.

Yeah, I know, civilization, education, plumbing, law....but other than that what did the British do for us?

Reticent Solipsist,

Your argument is interesting.  If I can't argue against the facts, the merits are not there.  Because this issue has never been before a court.  The alleged perpetrator cannot be judge, jury and executioner.

I believe there were injustices.  But these are old wounds secondary to more pressing issues.  People have argued in favor of ignoring the injustices of 2007/2008, because Ruto and Uhuru had made peace. 

PEV wounds are still raw.  Perps still on the lose and even in authority.  Yet I would not be surprised that some of the victims coming out of the woodwork were fanatical supporters of forgetting PEV.

[MOON Ki]

My guess is that all "liability" associated with the colonial possession of land would have been  passed on to GoK around independence; so it is not clear where these folks think they are going with this one.   One can look at, for example, native-land cases in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., where legal cases have been against the government of the day and not the British; a judge in the UK will be cognizant of such cases.   Have the RV people tried suing (in Kenyan courts) either GoK or the current occupiers of the land?

The "inspiration" from the Mau Mau case seems misplaced.  Even setting aside current views and laws on torture all over the world, it would have been hard to sustain a claim that torture by, on behalf, of a government in one country would have been passed on to a government in another country, unless the latter was somehow involved, which was not the case for GoK.   That is, the Mau Mau could not sue GoK for torture by the Brits.   On the other hand, regardless of what one thinks of such arguments, some can certainly be put forth to the effect that the "illegal" acquisition of  land somehow benefitted the natives.

What's more, even without getting into the "merits" of such the case, considering what the British got to with land all over the world, it's hard to see a British judge opening a can of worms that would have the British paying through the nose all over the place.    Could the Brits, then, be sued in an African court?   Around 2004, some folks in Uganda went to the High Court there to sue the Brits over all sorts of mischief associated with land.   I no longer recall the details, but they did not get very far: a couple of the Ugandan judges quickly found out that the Brits had entered into all sorts of tricky agreements with the locals, and they pretty much killed the case.    Here, we have a county or two setting off to sue the British government.   

Has the Attorney General of Kenya given any legal opinion, or even made a comment, with respect to any applicable legal agreements (between the locals and the Brits) and on independence and (between the Brits and the incoming of GoK)?  It is such that will determine where this goes; merely insisting that folks were screwed will not suffice, even if they were indeed screwed.

[RV Pundit]

Maybe you should re-read Mau Mau case where high court dismiss matters jurisdiction quickly. I think thanks to that case...this case has precedents..and the questions that will remain is to weed out the fake from the real victims.

Remember the land belong to community as we speak....

So for me this is just a shot across the bow.

My guess is that all "liability" associated with the colonial possession of land would have been  passed on to GoK around independence; so it is not clear where these folks think they are going with this one.   One can look at, for example, native-land cases in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., where legal cases have been against the government of the day and not the British; a judge in the UK will be cognizant of such cases.   Have the RV people tried suing (in Kenyan courts) either GoK or the current occupiers of the land?

The "inspiration" from the Mau Mau case seems misplaced.  Even setting aside current views and laws on torture all over the world, it would have been hard to sustain a claim that torture by, on behalf, of a government in one country would have been passed on to a government in another country, unless the latter was somehow involved, which was not the case for GoK.   That is, the Mau Mau could not sue GoK for torture by the Brits.   On the other hand, regardless of what one thinks of such arguments, some can certainly be put forth to the effect that the "illegal" acquisition of  land somehow benefitted the natives.

What's more, even without getting into the "merits" of such the case, considering what the British got to with land all over the world, it's hard to see a British judge opening a can of worms that would have the British paying through the nose all over the place.    Could the Brits, then, be sued in an African court?   Around 2004, some folks in Uganda went to the High Court there to sue the Brits over all sorts of mischief associated with land.   I no longer recall the details, but they did not get very far: a couple of the Ugandan judges quickly found out that the Brits had entered into all sorts of tricky agreements with the locals, and they pretty much killed the case.    Here, we have a county or two setting off to sue the British government.   

Has the Attorney General of Kenya given any legal opinion, or even made a comment, with respect to any applicable legal agreements (between the locals and the Brits) and on independence and (between the Brits and the incoming of GoK)?  It is such that will determine where this goes; merely insisting that folks were screwed will not suffice, even if they were indeed screwed.

[RV Pundit]

PEV, 92 and many RV land clashes stems from this British forcefully eviction of folks and then later on land was given to non-indigenous folks. PEV was like the London riots or the US riots. You cannot compare to an OFFICIAL sanction policy like colonialism. Nobody sanctioned PEV. Not at least officially. That is why ICC has come unstuck.

PEV wounds are still raw.  Perps still on the lose and even in authority.  Yet I would not be surprised that some of the victims coming out of the woodwork were fanatical supporters of forgetting PEV.

[MOON Ki]

Maybe you should re-read Mau Mau case where high court dismiss matters jurisdiction quickly. I think thanks to that case...this case has precedents..and the questions that will remain is to weed out the fake from the real victims.

Remember the land belong to community as we speak....

So for me this is just a shot across the bow.

(Which high court was that, and what were the jurisdictional issues that you have in mind?) 

A major question in the Mau Mau case was whether "liability" in the maltreatment of the Mau Mau was transferred from the Biritish government to the Kenyan government at independence.   That was unclear, and arguments could be made, and were made, both ways.

The land issue is different, and, as I see it, there are two major hurdles that the hopefuls face:

Hurdle #1:   Shortly after independence, Kenya enacted a new constitution (1964).   In that, under "Land, Property and Contracts",  you will find this:

26. (1) All rights, liabilities and obligations of-

a) Her Majesty in respect of the Government of Kenya; and

b) the Governor-General or any public officer in respect of the Government of Kenya on behalf of that Government; and

c) the Government of Kenya

shall on and after 12th December 1964 be rights, liabilities and obligations of the Government of the Republic of Kenya.

(2) In this section, rights, liabilities and obligations include rights, liabilities and obligations arising from contract or otherwise (other than any rights referred to in section 25 of this Act),

That seems clear enough, and I don't see how anyone proposes to argue that the liabilities then, somehow, miraculously, got transferred back.  How do you see it happening?

Hurdle #2: For good measure, the new GoK took the Crown Land Ordinance, dusted it off a bit, and renamed it the Government Lands Act.   As far as I can tell, that still forms the basis of land law in Kenya.

[Reticent Solipsist]

With due respect, don't you think it is the African/Kenyan who owes the British and not the other way around? What was the area around Kericho and the rest of Kenya like when the British Crown first set foot there? Let's see: no science, no literacy, no architecture, tropical diseases and myriad pathologies rampant, war and retribution was the accepted way of life, i.e, the norm.

Now contrast all that with what was achieved by that day, December 12th, 1963, when your country attained its in-dependence. The British bequeathed kenya with: viable institutions, a functioning first-rate railway system, a cadre of well trained civil servants, overall decent infrastructure, clean and orderly capital city of Nairobi "Keep your City Clean", an education system almost at par with that in the mother country; you had St. Mary's Nairobi, Duke of York, Prince of Wales, etc, and for the African, decent schools like Alliance, Mangu, Maseno, St.Mary's Yala, etc. Let's not forget a legal system borrowed from the much maligned British.

Yeah, I know, civilization, education, plumbing, law....but other than that what did the British do for us?

Reticent Solipsist,

Your argument is interesting.  If I can't argue against the facts, the merits are not there.  Because this issue has never been before a court.  The alleged perpetrator cannot be judge, jury and executioner.

I believe there were injustices.  But these are old wounds secondary to more pressing issues.  People have argued in favor of ignoring the injustices of 2007/2008, because Ruto and Uhuru had made peace. 

PEV wounds are still raw.  Perps still on the lose and even in authority.  Yet I would not be surprised that some of the victims coming out of the woodwork were fanatical supporters of forgetting PEV.

This entire charade almost smacks of a fishing expedition, in my opinion; it's about a quick payday riding on the back of colonial guilt.

As MOON Ki succinctly notes, this quest to sue The Man might inadvertently open liability questions vis-a-vis the Kenyan government and these folks in Kericho. Secondly, it might result in other folks looking anew at other historical land issues, including the historical cases involving the 'willing buyer, willing seller' fellow currently ensconced in the State House Nairobi. Additionally, the case could end up setting precedent for financial reparations for victims of the post-colonial Kenyan state for, say, "pain and suffering". In my estimate, therefore, I see a silver ling in all this: the biggest land usurpers in Kenya, the Kenyattas, the Mois, the Mathenges, Kibaki, Mahihus, etc, might finally see their log awaited day in court. Is the A-G of Kenya ready for that?

It could then be argued that the Net Present Value was already factored in terms of what the British bequeathed to these folks in Kericho, anyway.

Then lastly, this is a distraction from the real job of educating the ignorant fellows or making the real and necessary sacrifices to craft a better future and economy that can support themselves and 'their' communities. I would suggest that instead of advocating for The Man to cut each and every Tom, Dick and Harry, a fat check that he can then flaunt at the nearest Motel/Hotel/Holiday Inn. How about the Kerichoans, ask for, say, four well constructed and equipped secondary schools, one state of the art tech institute, or something along those noble lines -- assuming that they have a case in the first place, which I highly doubt.

Enough of all these nebulous wrongs of the past solely targeting the so-called beberu.

[MOON Ki]

Earlier today I read a whole bunch of material on the "Mau Mau Cases", I and II.  (As a side note: I found it "interesting"---because it seems to have been lost somewhere---that Raila, as P.M., appears to have played a significant role in getting the British to settle rather than go to trial.)

This land case is, as has correctly been pointed, a fishing expedition---and one that is going nowhere any time soon.   But lawyers too have to eat, and that means running up "billable hours".   Dead on arrival.  I can't even begin to list the number of ways in which it is dead, so I shall save that for another day.

In my view, Mau Mau Case II will run into some very rough waters indeed.   Those who brought it either do not understand what really happened in Case I, or they understand it but lawyers see a chance to eat.   It seems to be all  mindless  "precedent!, precedent!, precedent!; let's go get some British money!"  ... except for those who appear to know where the real suckers are. 

Reticent Solipsist: Yes, perhaps the people who want to hear the least about these land cases are right there in Kenya.   

[RV Pundit]

And we should just believe you because you read and you cannot even bother to list why.

Here is a link from Leighday who ran the billable hours that your hate
http://www.leighday.co.uk/News/2011/July-2011/Historic-judgment-as-UK-Government-loses-court-bat



In short there is not stature of limitation for certain actions such as mass forceful displacement and land grab.

Earlier today I read a whole bunch of material on the "Mau Mau Cases", I and II.  (As a side note: I found it "interesting"---because it seems to have been lost somewhere---that Raila, as P.M., appears to have played a significant role in getting the British to settle rather than go to trial.)

This land case is, as has correctly been pointed, a fishing expedition---and one that is going nowhere any time soon.   But lawyers too have to eat, and that means running up "billable hours".   Dead on arrival.  I can't even begin to list the number of ways in which it is dead, so I shall save that for another day.

In my view, Mau Mau Case II will run into some very rough waters indeed.   Those who brought it either do not understand what really happened in Case I, or they understand it but lawyers see a chance to eat.   It seems to be all  mindless  "precedent!, precedent!, precedent!; let's go get some British money!"  ... except for those who appear to know where the real suckers are. 

Reticent Solipsist: Yes, perhaps the people who want to hear the least about these land cases are right there in Kenya.