Kenya’s Justice Mumbi Ngugi will be awarded as the sixth Global Jurist of the year by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center for International Human Rights (CIHR). Justice Mumbi serves in the Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court of Kenya.
The Global Jurist of the Year Award is designed to honor a sitting judge in an international or national court, who has demonstrated courage to uphold and defend fundamental human rights, or the principles of international criminal justice. Jurists from all nations and tribunals are eligible for consideration.
Justice Mumbi Ngugi will receive the award during a virtual event at noon, Tuesday, February 16th. She will be interviewed by Honorable Ann Williams, retired U.S. Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
“It is important that we bring to our University community distinguished practitioners and scholars who not only speak and write, but those who courageously work to implement human rights on the front lines. Without them, little progress would be made in implementing human rights protections. She is a role model for our faculty and for students who aspire to be future Justice Ngugis,” said Thomas F. Geraghty, interim director of CIHR, about why Justice Ngugi was chosen to receive the award.
The webinar on 16th February will be open to all members of the Northwestern community, including faculty, students and alumni, as well as to CIHR’s friends and colleagues around the world.
Prior to her present posting, Justice Ngugi served as the Presiding Judge, High Court of Kenya, at Kericho and in the Constitutional and Human Rights Division in Nairobi. In the last nine years, she has been involved in the emerging human rights jurisprudence in Kenya, particularly in relation to the social economic rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
Prior to her appointment to the bench, Justice Ngugi was a writer and researcher on human rights issues and was, for six years, the lead researcher and compiler of the Kenya Human Rights Commission Bi-annual Human Rights Report. She was also a long-time columnist for Kenya’s leading newspapers, the Sunday Nation and The Standard, on social and legal issues.
Justice Ngugi holds a bachelor of laws degree (LLB) from the University of Nairobi and a master of laws (LLM) in commercial and corporate law from the London School of Economics, University of London.
She received the 2013 International Commission of Jurists-Kenya Jurist of the Year Award, the Brand Kenya Ambassador Award in 2013, the Law Society of Kenya Distinguished Service Award 2017, the C.B. Madan Award 2018 and the Transparency International Judicial Integrity Award 2019.
Latest past recipients of the CIHR’s Global Jurist Award include Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi, president of the International Criminal Court and a national of Argentina and Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada.