Kenya high court rules as ‘illegal’ deployment to lead UN mission in Haiti

A Kenyan High Court has ruled against the government’s plan to deploy police officers to violence-hit Haiti to lead a United Nations-backed multinational mission, declaring it as “unconstitutional”.
The UN-approved Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission was aimed at restoring order in the gang-plagued Caribbean nation. According to the Kenyan court, the East African nation can only send police officers to Haiti if both Kenya and Haiti have a reciprocal agreement under sections 107 and 108 of the National Police Service Act. The ruling comes amid warnings from UN experts about surging gang violence in Haiti and its government’s mounting calls for an urgent deployment of the multinational force to help the country’s overwhelmed police battle rampant violence.
The UN Security Council gave the go-ahead for the Kenya-led mission in October last year amid criticism at home that led to a legal challenge filed at the Nairobi High Court. Nairobi declared in July 2023 its preparedness to dispatch 10,000 police officers to Haiti with the aim of addressing and mitigating the prevailing gang violence in the nation. But on Friday (26 January), judge Enock Chacha Mwita ruled that “any decision by any state organ or state officer to deploy police officers to Haiti… contravenes the constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.” He also added that “an order is hereby issued prohibiting deployment of police forces to Haiti or any other country.” There was no immediate response from the Kenyan government to the ruling.