Republic v Land Registrar Naivasha; Mwangi & 2 others (Interested Parties); Mwangi (Ex parte Applicant) (Environment and Land Judicial Review Case E002 of 2025) [2026] KEELC 2165 (KLR)

Order 45 Rule 1 requires proof of due diligence. The Applicant was appointed administrator in 2017 but only searched in 2025. Section 83(g) imposed a duty to compile a full inventory of estate assets, which would have involved searching the title. Further, the 3rd Interested Party had openly occupied and quarried the 4.99-acre property since 2018, so discovery also lay on the ground. Her inaction was supine negligence, not the discovery of hidden evidence.

Relying on Nyamogo & Nyamogo v Kogo, the court held that an error apparent must be self-evident and not require long-drawn reasoning. Computing time from the date of the Registrar's decision (28th January 1989) was the literal statutory command. The Applicant's arguments about the 2015 search and discovery of fraud required external evidence and reasoning, making any alleged error an appealable one, not one reviewable under Order 45.

The Applicant argued that the 2010 Constitution expanded judicial review remedies for Bill of Rights violations and that fraud is a continuing wrong. The court held that although the Constitution changed, the Law Reform Act's wording did not, so Wilson Osolo remains good law. Statutory time limits for certiorari leave cannot be overridden by constitutional provisions or by reframing an administrative-law claim as a constitutional one.

The 3rd Interested Party argued that the court had exhausted its jurisdiction after ruling on the time bar. The court did not decide the application on functus officio grounds but on the merits of the review grounds, finding the earlier ruling 'well-grounded on the correct position of the law'. The functus officio argument was therefore raised and supported by the outcome but was not the ratio of the decision.