Lawrence Musango Oketch & 2 others v Karen Enterprises Limited

Article 162(2)(b) required Parliament to establish superior courts of equal status to hear and determine land and environment disputes. Parliament enacted the Environment and Land Court Act, whose section 13(1) confers original jurisdiction over all such disputes. Article 165(5)(b) expressly ousts the High Court's jurisdiction over these matters. Once the Environment and Land Court became operational, disputes of this nature could only be heard by it, and the High Court's continued hearing was without legal foundation.

The transitional clause permitted continued hearing of pending matters only pending operationalisation of the Environment and Land Court or as directed by the Chief Justice or Chief Registrar. The Chief Justice's direction power allowed interim management of the hiatus, such as holding cases in abeyance, but once the specialized court was operational his role ended. Practice directions, being administrative instruments, could not invest the High Court with jurisdiction that the Constitution and statute had removed.

Jurisdiction is everything; without it a court must down its tools and everything done thereafter is a nullity. The appellants' consent and full participation before the High Court could not validate proceedings that the Constitution and statute had assigned elsewhere. The impugned judgment, delivered in disregard of the jurisdictional bar, was therefore set aside in its entirety and the matter remitted to the Environment and Land Court for hearing and determination afresh.