KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Grant Gilmore of Yale has been quoted describing Christopher Langdell, a professor at Harvard Law school as essentially “a stupid man who early in his life hit on the casebook method, an idea that was absurd, mischievous and deeply rooted in error” an opinion that I strongly disagree with. However I do agree with the opinion of Joseph Kimble, Plain Language Michigan Bar Journal, November 2006, where he states that the case book method has had one harmful if unintended consequence for helping perpetuate legalese. Joseph Kimble states that legalese should be distinguished from terms of art such as habeas corpus, indemnity and tortious interference with a contract . He describes legalese as high faulting legal jargon such as hereinbefore stated, in the instant case, pursuant to and said claims or such claims. He further laments that use of legalese costs clients’ money, impairs persuasiveness and detracts a writer’s reputation. Bryan Garner [1] , in his article Learning to loathe...

1.        What does Article 2(4) of the Constitution provide? Article 2(4) of the Constitution of Kenya provides that, any law, including customary, that is inconsistent with the Constitution of Kenya is void to the extent of the inconsistency, and any act or omission in contravention of the Constitution is invalid. In essence Article 2(4) of the Constitution provides for the supremacy clause initially provided for under Section 3 of the Constitution of Kenya (Repealed) . Consequently the effect of Article 2(4) of the Constitution is that that any act or omission in contravention of the constitution is invalid. Therefore before a court of law applies Customary Law or any other law, in any particular case, the court must be sure that the particular rule of custom is not contrary to any provision of the Constitution. The court must therefore, consider all acts of a customs and ensure that they are not contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. In...

A revolution is a term used to describe the action of a New Order taking over an Order already in existence: it is when something new takes over the old. A country is said to have undergone a successful revolution when a new government takes over an old government. The revolution can either be violent and bloody or it can be peaceful. Kenya for instance underwent a peaceful in the year 2002 when a new regime NARC took over the old regime KANU which regime had been in existence since independence of Kenya from the British colonialists. According to Hans Kelsen, a norm is validated by a higher norm which is in turn validated by another higher norm. This chain of validity stretches back to the grund norm . In law this basic norm is the constitution of the state. In his general theory of the law and the state, Kelsen states that , “it cannot be maintained that legally, men have to behave in conformity with a certain norm, if the total legal order of which that norm is an integr...