Mburuto v Wanjiku & another (Environment and Land Appeal 3 of 2017) [2025] KEELC 1422 (KLR)

The court held that parties are bound by statutory dispute-resolution procedures and that finality attaches once those processes are invoked and concluded. The Appellant had appealed to the Appeals Committee, whose decision was signed on 8th August 2001, and had then filed Meru High Court Civil Appeal No. 122 of 2001, which Justice Lenaola struck out with costs for being filed out of time and without leave. Having chosen that path, he remained bound by its outcome and could not turn the wheel back.

Section 7(2) of the Act is couched in mandatory terms: the court shall enter judgment in accordance with the Tribunal's decision. The Magistrate was not expected to interrogate the Tribunal's decision. Consequently, the purported grounds of review - that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction over title to registered land - could not be raised by way of review before the Magistrate, who had no review jurisdiction under the Act. Even if review were entertainable, the application could not satisfy Order 45 Rule 1(b), as no error on the face of the record was shown.

The court found that in essence no competent application for review was before the trial Magistrate, so his dismissal of it was right even if his reasons differed. The authorities cited by the Appellant on nullity for want of Tribunal jurisdiction were distinguishable because in those cases parties had invoked the statutory dispute-resolution mechanism to challenge the Tribunal, whereas here the Appellant had exhausted the appeal mechanism and could not revert to the Magistrate's Court for review.