The right to life and the right to adequate housing: the indivisibility and interdependence between these rights 2016, para. 65
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- The new Constitution of Kenya (2010) includes both the right to life and the right to accessible and adequate housing as justiciable rights. Kenyan courts have affirmed an integrated understanding of the relationship between the two rights under the new Constitution. In the Garissa case, for example, a claim was filed on behalf of 1,122 people who were brutally evicted from land they had occupied since the 1940s. The High Court observed that the Constitution of Kenya recognizes all human rights as justiciable, noting that "people living without the basic necessities of life are deprived of human dignity, freedom and equality". The court found that the evictions violated the rights to life and to adequate housing and issued an injunction compelling the State to return the claimants to their land and to reconstruct their homes or provide alternative housing and other facilities. Similarly, in the Santrose Ayuma case, another large-scale eviction, the High Court found that evictions carried out without meaningful engagement with those affected and without provision of alternative shelter violated the rights to life and to adequate housing. The court insisted that resettlement plans be consistent with the right to a dignified life.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Housing, Report to the UNGA (2016), A/71/310, para. 65.
- Paragraph number
- 65
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