How to use Kenya Law

Type your question in ordinary language — "can my employer fire me without notice," "what are my rights as a tenant," "can I get a divorce without going to court." The search system recognises question-like queries and returns a structured answer drawing from the relevant Acts and cases, with every claim linked back to its primary source.

You do not need to know legal terminology. If you type "fired," the system understands that relates to termination of employment.

Search by topic, Act name, or specific legal phrase. Use quotation marks for an exact phrase — "unfair dismissal" will match that exact phrase rather than results containing each word separately.

Results are ranked by authority weight, not just relevance — a Supreme Court decision on point ranks above a Magistrate's Court decision of similar textual relevance.

If you know a citation, type it directly and the system jumps straight to the document — no disambiguation step. Examples:

[2019] eKLR — a Kenya Law case citation
Employment Act s.41 — a specific section
Article 43 — a constitutional Article

The standing banner at the top of every case page tells you immediately. "Good law — not overturned" means you can rely on the ratio. If a later court has overturned or significantly distinguished the case, that appears in the same banner — you will not miss it.

The Citation Graph tab on a case page shows three types of relationship — Followed (later courts agreed and applied the ratio), Distinguished (later courts reached a different result because the facts were different), and Overturned (a higher court reversed the decision).

These are fundamentally different. A case that has been "distinguished" many times is not a weak authority — it is an authority with a well-defined scope. A case that has been overturned cannot be relied upon as good law.

Kenya's courts operate in a hierarchy. A Supreme Court decision binds every other court. A Court of Appeal decision binds the High Court and all subordinate courts. A High Court decision is persuasive for other High Court judges but not strictly binding. Magistrates' Court decisions carry no formal precedential weight.

This platform always shows the court level alongside every case — in result lists, in the citation graph, and on the case page itself — so you can assess authority weight without additional research.

The holding block summarises the key legal principle the court decided — the ratio decidendi, or the reason for the decision. This is the part of the judgment that binds later courts. Everything else — observations, examples, reasoning that was not necessary to the decision — is obiter dicta and is persuasive only, not binding.

Rules, regulations, orders, or notices made under the authority of a principal Act of Parliament — rather than being passed by Parliament directly. For example, the Minister may be empowered by the Employment Act to make regulations prescribing specific forms or procedures. Those regulations are subsidiary legislation. On this platform, subsidiary legislation is grouped and displayed under its parent Act.

An Act or section that has been passed by Parliament and received Presidential assent, but has not yet been brought into legal operation. This usually happens because the Act specifies that it comes into force on a date to be announced by Gazette Notice. Until that notice is published, the Act is law on paper but cannot be enforced or relied upon in court.

Latin for "things said by the way." Observations a judge makes in a judgment that are not strictly necessary to decide the case at hand. Obiter dicta are not binding on later courts — they are persuasive only. The binding part of a judgment is the ratio decidendi.

"eKLR" stands for electronic Kenya Law Reports — the citation format used for cases published on Kenya Law. A full citation looks like: Petition No. 12 of 2024 [2024] eKLR. Typing an eKLR citation directly into the search bar jumps you straight to that case without any additional steps.

The official verbatim record of proceedings in Parliament — the National Assembly and the Senate. Lawyers and judges sometimes refer to Hansard to understand the intent behind a statutory provision, particularly where the text of the Act is ambiguous. On this platform, Hansard entries are linked to the Bills they concern.

Any Act, Section, Case, or Article can be saved using the Save button on its page. Saved items appear in your Research Dashboard and can be organised into named research threads — useful when working on a matter that spans multiple sessions.

Following an Act, Section, or topic sends you a notification when it changes — a new amendment, a commencement Gazette Notice, or new interpreting case law. Alerts are specific to changes, not just republications — a notification means something has actually happened, not just that the page was updated.

No. Searching, reading, and navigating the entire legal record is free and requires no account. An account is only needed for personal features — saved items, alerts, and research history. Creating an account is free.