Justice must not wait for Ocampo

The impending visit to Kenya by International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has raised expectations that the masterminds of the 2008 post-election violence will soon face justice at the Hague, striking a blow against Kenya’s culture of impunity.

While this popular expectation is understandable, Kenyans may do well to heed the expert voices that are cautioning against the perception that The Hague is the end-it-all for Kenya.

In fact, as pointed out in a story in this issue, the ICC was designed to be a court of last resort, and was not meant to replace a country’s entire jurisprudential system.

What’s more, the ICC operates within certain strict guidelines that are meant to make its operations and verdicts acceptable globally.

There are no provisions in its statutes for waffling and personal crusades.

Kenyans must also remember that the ICC’s diary is crowded.

Since 2008, for example, the world has been rocked by several conflicts including the civil war in Sri Lanka, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza which South African judge Richard Goldstone has specifically said constituted crimes against humanity, the civil unrest in northern Nigeria in which hundreds died, and more recently the unprovoked shootings in Guinea.

In the execution of its mandate, the ICC will have to prioritise all of these conflicts.

The point here is not that Mr Ocampo does not have a role to play in resolving the issues raised by Kenya’s PEV, or in helping bury the spectre of impunity.

It is that expecting the ICC to single-handedly clean the country’s mess is delusory.

At most, the ICC may indict a few politicians, but even these may not reach full trial.

Kenya must itself develop or institute mechanisms to ensure perpetrators of the 2008 crimes are held to account.

There are no legal or constitutional reasons why these people, for example, have not been processed through the criminal justice system two years down the line.

Waiting for Mr Ocampo is all very well, but all the other wheels of justice should be grinding along.