Introduction
1. This Ruling concerns the Notice of Motion Application dated 9th July 2026, filed by Joseph Kasau Masaa (hereafter “the Applicant”) and supported by his affidavit of the same date. The Applicant seeks the following orders:
(i). That the Application be certified urgent and heard on a priority basis;
(ii). That, pending the hearing and determination of the Application, the 2nd Respondent, whether by itself, its Governor, servants, agents, employees, assigns or any person acting under its authority, be restrained from entering upon, invading, taking over, assuming control of, or interfering with the operations or management of Amboseli National Park, or in any manner implementing or purporting to implement the Deed of Transfer dated 14th October 2025, in contravention of the orders of this Court issued on 30th December 2025; and
(iii). That summons do issue for the Governor of Kajiado County, Mr Joseph Ole Lenku, to appear before this Court to show cause why he should not be held liable for contempt.
Inter partes:
(iv). That the Court do find, hold and declare that the Governor of Kajiado County is in contempt of the orders of 30th December 2025;
(v). That the Governor be committed to civil jail for six (6) months or such period as the Court may deem fit;
(vi). In the alternative, that the Governor be ordered to pay a fine of Kshs. 5,000,000;
(vii). That the Governor be ordered to purge the contempt; and
(viii). That costs of the Application be awarded to the Applicant.
2. The Application arises against the backdrop of this Court's ruling delivered on 30th December 2025, by which the Court dismissed the 1st and 4th Respondents' Preliminary Objection, allowed the Petitioner's Notice of Motion dated 11th November 2025, and issued conservatory orders that: (i) suspended, halted and/or stayed Gazette Notice No. 15231, together with its operation, implementation and effect; and (ii) restored and re-established the status quo ante that obtained with respect to the operations and management of Amboseli National Park before the execution of the impugned Deed of Transfer, in each case pending the hearing and determination of the Petition.
3. It is the Applicant's case that, notwithstanding the subsistence of those orders and the admitted knowledge of them, the Governor of Kajiado County, through public pronouncements, an official media press briefing held on 7th July 2026 at the Kimana Gate of Amboseli National Park, and publications on the official Facebook page of the "Governor Press Service – Kajiado County", issued a seven (7)-day ultimatum to the Kenya Wildlife Service ("KWS") requiring it to relinquish control of the Park by 14th July 2026, and sought to implement and operationalize the very transfer suspended by this Court, thereby committing what the Applicant characterizes as a continuing and escalating affront to the Orders of this Court.
4. The application was opposed by the 2nd Respondent on the grounds that: (a) the Application is incompetent because it was brought under a statute previously declared unconstitutional; (b) no completed act of physical takeover, invasion or interference with the Park had occurred, and so there was no willful disobedience capable of constituting contempt; and (c) the statements complained of were personal and political statements of the Governor in his individual capacity, not attributable to the 2nd Respondent, a distinct body corporate under Article 176 of the Constitution and Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act.
Responses to the Application
5. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Respondents and the Interested Parties did not file any response to the Application. The 2nd Respondent opposed the Application through the Replying Affidavit of Dr Leina Mpoke, its County Secretary, deponed to on 20th July 2026, in which the 2nd Respondent confirmed and did not dispute the existence, communication to it, and continuing validity of the conservatory orders issued on 30th December 2025.
6. The 2nd Respondent averred that it is a distinct legal entity, separate from the Governor of Kajiado County in his individual capacity, and that no resolution, directive, circular or other official act had been passed, issued or authorised by it sanctioning entry into, invasion of or takeover of the Park.
7. It was deposed that no County personnel, vehicles, equipment or other resources had been mobilized or deployed to or in the vicinity of the Park, and that, as at the date of swearing the Replying Affidavit, the Kenya Wildlife Service remained in full, exclusive and uninterrupted management, occupation and control of the Park, so that, on the 2nd Respondent's account, the status quo ante was "not merely formally intact but factually and physically undisturbed."
8. The 2nd Respondent took issue with annexure "JK-07," deposing that the document did not bear its official logo and was not an official document issued by it. In support of the said contention, it exhibited a letter from its County Attorney confirming its true logo.
9. The 2nd Respondent characterized the video clips, press briefing footage and social media posts annexed as "JK-02" to "JK-06" as truncated, unsubstantiated media excerpts whose authenticity and completeness had not been proved. Without prejudice to that objection, the 2nd Respondent contended that, even at their highest, the statements were personal and political remarks by the Governor addressing longstanding community grievances, not made pursuant to any resolution or official act of the 2nd Respondent.
10. The 2nd Respondent deposed that it had not authorised, sanctioned or procured any of the third-party social media calls for mass action exhibited as "JK-08". It was its position that the Application was speculative, anticipatory and premature, founded on an apprehension of a future act that had not materialized, and ought to be dismissed with costs.
11. The Applicant, in his Further Affidavit sworn on 23rd July 2026, deposed that the 2nd Respondent's denial of institutional responsibility is legally untenable given the constitutional and statutory position of the Governor as chief executive of the county. The statements were made at an official press briefing and disseminated through the county's official communications organ, using institutional rather than personal language. Therefore, the claim that no County personnel had been deployed is contradicted by the Governor's own complaint that his staff had been denied access to the Park.
12. The application was canvassed by written submissions. The Applicant's written submissions are dated 23rd July 2026, and the 2nd Respondent's Submissions are dated 23rd July 2026; the Court considered them together with the pleadings, affidavits and annexures on record, and the authorities cited therein, in arriving at this Ruling.
Submissions of the Parties
13. The applicant submitted that, following the declaration of unconstitutionality of the Contempt of Court Act, 2016, the applicable law is Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act, which confers upon the High Court the same power to punish for contempt as the High Court of Justice in England possesses, exercised in aid of the Court's inherent jurisdiction and in furtherance of Articles 10, 159 and 165 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010; and that mislabeling the enabling provision in the Application does not, and cannot, oust the Court's undoubted inherent and statutory jurisdiction to protect and vindicate its own orders.
14. It was submitted that the elements of civil contempt, as restated in Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR), namely the existence of the terms of an order, knowledge of those terms, ability to comply, and willful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply, are all made out on the record.
15. The Applicant’s position is that the orders of 30th December 2025 are clear and specific; knowledge was admitted at paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Replying Affidavit; compliance required nothing more than restraint; and the conduct particularized, namely announcing an effective date for the suspended transfer, demanding that KWS "keep off" the Park, asserting the commencement of a revenue-sharing arrangement under the suspended Deed, issuing a public ultimatum, and declaring that the Park would be taken "by peace or otherwise", constitutes the very implementation and operationalization of the suspended transfer which the very Court Orders prohibit, undertaken deliberately, publicly, and with knowledge of the orders.
16. It was further submitted, relying on Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1974] AC 273, that contempt is not confined to completed physical acts of disobedience but extends to conduct calculated to obstruct, undermine or defeat the efficacy of court orders. It was also submitted that a public ultimatum, operational directives to a state agency, and incitement of the public to occupy the subject matter of a suspended instrument are themselves completed acts of contempt because their object and tendency is to procure a fait accompli before the Petition is heard, a course this Court had already warned against in its ruling of 30th December 2025.
17. The Applicant submitted that under Articles 179(1), 179(2) and 179(4) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and Section 30 of the County Governments Act, the Governor is the chief executive of the County and the office through which the County Government speaks and acts; that the statements were made at an official press briefing, published through the county's official communications organ in the institutional plural ("we", "our"), and expressly invoked an official implementation instrument, the "Transition Implementation Report"; that the 2nd Respondent cannot approbate and reprobate by defending the impugned transfer in these very proceedings while disowning the public steps taken by its chief executive to realize it; and that the Governor's failure to swear any affidavit denying the statements, disavowing the ultimatum or undertaking to obey the orders warrants an adverse inference against him.
18. It was submitted that the contempt relied upon is not a future occupation of the Park but a completed and continuing course of conduct already undertaken, and that a party who publicly announces, with a countdown, an intention to defeat subsisting orders cannot be heard to say that the victim of the threat came to Court too soon. Further, the electronic evidence was properly certified under Sections 106A and 106B of the Evidence Act, and any residual objection as to authenticity went to weight, not admissibility, particularly where the making of the statements was not denied. The Applicant urged the Court to allow the Application as prayed for, with costs.
19. The 2nd Respondent's submissions identified three issues for determination. On the first issue, it was submitted that the Notice of Motion was pleaded and commenced under Section 4 of the Contempt of Court Act, 2016, which was declared unconstitutional in its entirety for want of public participation. Reference was made to the decision of Kenya Human Rights Commission v Attorney General; Law Society of Kenya (Interested Party) [2018] KEHC 9656 (KLR) for the proposition that the consequence of that declaration is that the applicable law reverted to Section 5 of the Judicature Act (Cap. 8) and the common law; and that, because the Application was founded on an invalidated statute, this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear and determine it, and any decision rendered is liable to be impugned as being per incuriam. Counsel relied on the decision of the Court in Republic v County Government of Nairobi & 2 others Ex-Parte Kingpost Limited [2021] KEELC 1084 (KLR) and several other decisions referred to in the submissions.
20. On the second issue, the 2nd Respondent submitted that contempt proceedings are quasi-criminal in character, attracting a standard of proof higher than the balance of probabilities, and cited, in support thereof, the case Sheila Cassatt Issenberg & another v Antony Machatha Kinyanjui [2021] KEHC 5692 (KLR) and that of Abdi v Adan & another [2025] KEHC 13199 (KLR). It was urged that the Applicant must establish, cumulatively, the existence of a clear and unambiguous order, service of or actual knowledge of the order, and willful and mala fide disobedience of it. Reference was made to the Court's decision in Wanjigi v Inspector General of Police & 2 others [2025] KEHC 2755 (KLR). It was submitted that, while the existence of the orders and the 2nd Respondent's knowledge thereof were not in dispute, willful disobedience was, and that contempt is concerned exclusively with what a person has actually and deliberately done in defiance of a clear order, not with threatened or anticipated conduct that has not materialized.
21. The 2nd Respondent's uncontroverted evidence is that no resolution, directive or official act sanctioning a takeover had been passed; that no County personnel or resources had been deployed to the Park; and that, to date, KWS remained in full and undisturbed control of the Park. Its position was that the application discloses no specific date, time, place or completed act of interference; and that statements about an intended future act, together with an ultimatum whose deadline had lapsed without the threatened takeover occurring, are not themselves the "act" required for a finding of contempt. Accordingly, there was, in law, no res upon which a finding of contempt could bite, and the application could properly be characterized as a prospective injunction dressed in the language of committal.
22. On the third issue, it was submitted that under Article 176(1) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act, the 2nd Respondent is a body corporate and a distinct juristic person, separate from the Governor as an individual state officer, capable of acting only through its lawful organs, resolutions and official acts; that while a body corporate acts through its officers, that principle does not convert every statement made by an officer, in every setting, into an official act of the corporation; that the statements attributed to the Governor, even taken at their highest, were personal and political, articulating a longstanding community grievance, and were not shown to have been made pursuant to, or to reflect, any resolution or official act of the 2nd Respondent; and that isolated public remarks by a Governor cannot, without more, be elevated into institutional disobedience by the County Government he heads. On this basis, the 2nd Respondent urged the Court to dismiss the Application with costs.
Analysis and Determination
23. Having considered the Application, the annexures, and the rival submissions and the authorities cited and relied on by the parties herein, the Court finds that the following issues arise for determination:
(i)Whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the Application; and
(ii)Whether the elements of civil contempt have been established against the Governor of Kajiado County and whether the impugned conduct is attributable to the 2nd Respondent;
(i) Whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the Application.
24. The decision in Kenya Human Rights Commission v Attorney General; Law Society of Kenya (Interested Party) [2018] KEHC 9656 (KLR) found that the Contempt of Court Act, 2016 was unconstitutional in its entirety and the applicable law reverted to Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act (Cap. 8), read with the common law and the Court's inherent jurisdiction under Article 165(3) and Article 159 of the Constitution of Kenya,2010. Having said that, I do not agree that the reference to the invalidated Act in the Notice of Motion application is fatal to the Court's jurisdiction to entertain the Application.
25. It is trite law, long settled, that where jurisdiction to grant the substantive relief sought independently exists, mere reference to a wrong or superseded provision of the law does not vitiate an application. See Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR), where the Court held that, notwithstanding the purported repeal of Section 5 of the Judicature Act by the since-invalidated Contempt of Court Act, 2016, Section 5 of the Judicature Act "still stands" and continues to govern contempt proceedings where the jurisdiction invoked in fact and in substance exists and no prejudice is occasioned to the opposite party.
26. The jurisdiction to punish for, and to restrain, contempt of its own orders is one that inheres in this Court independently of any statute. It derives from Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act, from the Court's inherent power to protect the integrity of its own process, and from Article 159(2)(d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, which enjoins courts to administer justice without undue regard to procedural technicalities.
27. In my view, the 2nd Respondent has not demonstrated, nor do I find, that it suffered any prejudice by reason of the Applicant’s reference to the said provision of the Law. It fully understood the case it had to meet, as is evident from the comprehensive Replying Affidavit and submissions filed on its behalf, which addressed the substance of the contempt allegations. To decline jurisdiction on this technical ground alone would be to elevate form over substance in a matter concerning the vindication of the Court's own authority, precisely the kind of outcome Article 159(2)(d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, forecloses. The objection as to the court’s jurisdiction to determine the matter is accordingly without merit and does not stand.
(ii)Whether the elements of civil contempt have been established against the Governor of Kajiado County and whether the impugned conduct is attributable to the 2nd Respondent
28. The elements an applicant must establish to found civil contempt are well settled in the decision of Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR): (i) the existence of a clear and unambiguous order; (ii) knowledge of that order by the alleged contemnor; (iii) the ability of the alleged contemnor to comply; and (iv) wilful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply. The standard of proof, given the quasi-criminal character of contempt and the liberty interests engaged by committal, is higher than the ordinary civil standard of balance of probabilities, though it does not rise to proof beyond reasonable doubt.
29. The first two elements of the existence of a clear and unambiguous order and knowledge of that order by the alleged contemnor are not seriously in issue between the parties. The order of 30th December, 2025 is precise and unequivocal. It suspended Gazette Notice No. 15231 and the Deed of Transfer, and restored the status quo ante with respect to the operations and management of the Amboseli National Park under the 6th Respondent, pending the hearing of the Petition. The 2nd Respondent, and by extension its Governor, expressly admitted knowledge of these very orders in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Replying Affidavit; moreover, the 2nd Respondent participated in, and defended, the application that yielded the said Court Orders. The third element, the alleged contemnor's ability to comply, is self-evidently satisfied. It required only restraint from taking steps to implement the suspended instruments.
30. The live and contested question before the court is the willful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply with the Orders. On this question, the Court shall distinguish between two categories of conduct that the rival submissions in the matter tend to elide: first, actual steps taken to implement, operationalize or give effect to the suspended Deed of Transfer and Gazette Notice, which the Orders of 30th December, 2025 prohibit; and second, mere threats, predictions or expressions of political intent regarding a future, not-yet-realized physical takeover of the Park, which, without more, would fall short of the completed disobedience the law requires, as the authorities cited by the 2nd Respondent correctly emphasize.
31. On the evidence, the Court finds that the conduct complained of falls, substantially, into the first category. The Governor's own recorded and published statements are not confined to a general expression of intention to take over the Park at some unspecified future date. He was recorded as asserting that a revenue-sharing arrangement, expressly tied to the impugned transfer, had already taken effect from 1st July 2026; he is recorded as complaining that County staff had been denied access to the Park by KWS officers, an assertion which, on a fair reading, is only intelligible on the footing that County personnel had in fact been dispatched to the Park to give effect to the purported arrangement; and the official Facebook publication invokes, by name, a "Transition Implementation Report", an instrument of implementation of the very transfer suspended by this Court.
32. These are not, on their face, mere predictions of a future act; they are live assertions, made publicly and in the institutional voice, that steps to implement the suspended transfer had already been taken. This also answers the question of whether the application is premature or speculative, as submitted by the 2nd Respondent.
33. To this extent, the Court is satisfied that the Applicant has established, to the requisite standard, that directives were issued, an official implementation instrument was invoked, and operational steps, including the reported deployment of County staff, were asserted to have been taken in defiance of the orders of 30th December, 2025, notwithstanding the 2nd Respondent's bare denial that any resolution or personnel movement occurred. The Governor's own words are, in this respect, more probative than the County Secretary's institutional denial, since the County Secretary does not purport to depose to the Governor's personal knowledge, conduct or intention, and has not controverted the Governor's recorded statements. See Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1974] AC 273, as referred to in Njeru v Republic [1993] KECA 73 (KLR), that contempt is not confined to completed physical acts of disobedience but extends to conduct calculated to obstruct, undermine or defeat the efficacy of a court's orders.
34. The Court accepts, however, the force of the 2nd Respondent's submission on one narrower point: that as at the date of the Replying Affidavit, 20th July 2026, some six days after the expiry of the impugned ultimatum, the 6th Respondent remained in full, exclusive and undisturbed management, occupation and control of Amboseli National Park, and that no physical invasion, occupation or forcible takeover of the Park by the 2nd Respondent, its officers or the public has in fact occurred. This is significant not because it exonerates the Governor of the conduct already found above, but because it bears directly on the gravity of the consequences that this Court can properly visit upon him at this stage, a matter to which the Court returns below.
35. The Court has carefully considered the 2nd Respondent's submission that it is a distinct juristic person under Article 176(1) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and under Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act, separate from the Governor as an individual, and that isolated personal or political statements by the Governor cannot, without more, be elevated to institutional disobedience by the County Government. As a general proposition of law, a body corporate is not to be conflated with every statement made by any of its officers.
36. The difficulty for the 2nd Respondent is that the proposition, however sound in the abstract, does not stand especially with the particular facts of the present matter. The Governor is not merely "an officer" of the 2nd Respondent. By virtue of the provisions of Articles 179(1), 179(2) and 179(4) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, he is the head of the County Executive Committee in which the executive authority of the county is vested, and he is expressly designated "the chief executive of the county". Section 30 of the County Governments Act charges him with providing leadership in the county's governance and coordinating the functions of the county administration. A body corporate speaks and acts only through natural persons; in such a case, the Governor.
37. More decisively, the manner and context in which the impugned statements were made negate their characterization as purely personal or political speech. They were delivered not at a rally, a campaign platform, or in a private capacity, but at an official media press briefing convened at the gate of the very public asset in dispute; they were thereafter published not on a personal account but on the Facebook page of the "Governor Press Service – Kajiado County", an organ which describes itself as a "Government Organization" and as the "Governor's Press Service Unit", and which contemporaneously publishes official County Communication; and the language used was institutional and collective, "we have given KWS 7 days" and "Amboseli is ours by right", invoking an official implementation instrument.
38. It is not open to the 2nd Respondent to hold out its Governor as its official spokesperson through its own official communications channel when it suits it to explain County policy to the public, and simultaneously to disown, for the purposes of these proceedings, the very same channel and the very same office when its Governor's statements prove inconvenient.
39. The Court also considers it material that the 2nd Respondent, having actively defended the impugned Deed of Transfer and asserted its own entitlement to the management functions of the Park in these very proceedings, cannot consistently disown the public steps taken by its chief executive to realise that same entitlement; a party cannot approbate and reprobate. See Cosmas & 2 others v Natembeya, Governor, Trans Nzoia County & 8 others; Wamalwa & 3 others (Interested Parties) [2026] KEELRC 596 (KLR). For these reasons, the Court finds that the Governor's conduct, as particularized above, is attributable to the 2nd Respondent, without prejudice to the distinct question addressed below of what relief may properly be visited upon the 2nd Respondent as opposed to the Governor personally.
40. This Court then considers what relief is properly available on the material before the Court, bearing firmly in mind the distinction, recognised in the authorities cited by both parties, between the ordinary civil standard applicable to injunctive relief and the elevated, quasi-criminal standard required before a court may commit a person to civil jail or impose a punitive fine, a step that engages the liberty of the person concerned and, accordingly, demands scrupulous observance of the rules of natural justice.
41. As regards the restraining orders sought at prayer 2 of the Application, the Court is satisfied that these ought to issue. The Court has found that the 2nd Respondent, through its Governor, has already taken steps calculated to implement and operationalise the suspended Deed of Transfer, and has publicly threatened further and more drastic steps, including a purported takeover of the Park "by peace or otherwise". These findings, together with the undenied risk of public mobilisation evident from annexure "JK-08", amply justify reinforcing, by way of specific restraining orders, the conservatory orders already in force to protect the Petition from being rendered nugatory. Such orders are properly civil and protective in character, and their issuance neither requires, nor depends upon, a final finding of contempt to the elevated standard.
42. As regards the prayers for a formal finding that the Governor is in contempt, and for his committal to civil jail or the imposition of a fine, the Court must proceed with greater caution. While the Court has found, at paragraphs 27 to 32 above, that a strong prima facie case of wilful disobedience has been established against the Governor personally, the Court is mindful that: (i) the Governor has not personally been made a party to, nor has he personally appeared or been heard in, these proceedings; (ii) he has not sworn an affidavit and has therefore not had the opportunity, on oath, to explain, deny or contextualise the statements attributed to him, nor to purge any contempt found; and (iii) an order of committal to civil jail, being penal in substance, ought not, consistently with the rules of natural justice and the elevated standard of proof applicable, to be made in the absence of the person sought to be committed, without that person first being accorded a real and personal opportunity to be heard and to show cause, however compelling the case may presently appear on the Affidavit filed by the 2nd Respondent's County Secretary. See Akber Abdullah Kassam Esmail v Equip Agencies Ltd & 4 others [2014] KECA 627 (KLR) and Kioni & 3 others v National Disciplinary Committee of the Jubilee Party & 2 others; Chege (Contemnor) [2024] KEHC 11441 (KLR).
43. The Court accordingly declines, at this stage, to make the final orders of committal or of a punitive fine sought at prayers 5 and 6 of the Application.
Final Orders
44. In the exercise of the Court's inherent jurisdiction to protect its own process, the Court finds, holds, and orders that:
a). The 2nd Respondent's objection to the jurisdiction of this Court be and is hereby dismissed;
b). The Governor is hereby personally summoned to appear before the Court on 16th September 2026, in his personal capacity, and upon oath, to show cause why he should not be committed for contempt of the orders of 30th December, 2025, or otherwise penalized;
c). The prayers for committal to civil jail and/or a fine be and are hereby res
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1. This Ruling concerns the Notice of Motion Application dated 9th July 2026, filed by Joseph Kasau Masaa (hereafter “the Applicant”) and supported by his affidavit of the same date. The Applicant seeks the following orders:
(i). That the Application be certified urgent and heard on a priority basis;
(ii). That, pending the hearing and determination of the Application, the 2nd Respondent, whether by itself, its Governor, servants, agents, employees, assigns or any person acting under its authority, be restrained from entering upon, invading, taking over, assuming control of, or interfering with the operations or management of Amboseli National Park, or in any manner implementing or purporting to implement the Deed of Transfer dated 14th October 2025, in contravention of the orders of this Court issued on 30th December 2025; and
(iii). That summons do issue for the Governor of Kajiado County, Mr Joseph Ole Lenku, to appear before this Court to show cause why he should not be held liable for contempt.
Inter partes:
(iv). That the Court do find, hold and declare that the Governor of Kajiado County is in contempt of the orders of 30th December 2025;
(v). That the Governor be committed to civil jail for six (6) months or such period as the Court may deem fit;
(vi). In the alternative, that the Governor be ordered to pay a fine of Kshs. 5,000,000;
(vii). That the Governor be ordered to purge the contempt; and
(viii). That costs of the Application be awarded to the Applicant.
2. The Application arises against the backdrop of this Court's ruling delivered on 30th December 2025, by which the Court dismissed the 1st and 4th Respondents' Preliminary Objection, allowed the Petitioner's Notice of Motion dated 11th November 2025, and issued conservatory orders that: (i) suspended, halted and/or stayed Gazette Notice No. 15231, together with its operation, implementation and effect; and (ii) restored and re-established the status quo ante that obtained with respect to the operations and management of Amboseli National Park before the execution of the impugned Deed of Transfer, in each case pending the hearing and determination of the Petition.
3. It is the Applicant's case that, notwithstanding the subsistence of those orders and the admitted knowledge of them, the Governor of Kajiado County, through public pronouncements, an official media press briefing held on 7th July 2026 at the Kimana Gate of Amboseli National Park, and publications on the official Facebook page of the "Governor Press Service – Kajiado County", issued a seven (7)-day ultimatum to the Kenya Wildlife Service ("KWS") requiring it to relinquish control of the Park by 14th July 2026, and sought to implement and operationalize the very transfer suspended by this Court, thereby committing what the Applicant characterizes as a continuing and escalating affront to the Orders of this Court.
4. The application was opposed by the 2nd Respondent on the grounds that: (a) the Application is incompetent because it was brought under a statute previously declared unconstitutional; (b) no completed act of physical takeover, invasion or interference with the Park had occurred, and so there was no willful disobedience capable of constituting contempt; and (c) the statements complained of were personal and political statements of the Governor in his individual capacity, not attributable to the 2nd Respondent, a distinct body corporate under Article 176 of the Constitution and Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act.
Responses to the Application
5. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Respondents and the Interested Parties did not file any response to the Application. The 2nd Respondent opposed the Application through the Replying Affidavit of Dr Leina Mpoke, its County Secretary, deponed to on 20th July 2026, in which the 2nd Respondent confirmed and did not dispute the existence, communication to it, and continuing validity of the conservatory orders issued on 30th December 2025.
6. The 2nd Respondent averred that it is a distinct legal entity, separate from the Governor of Kajiado County in his individual capacity, and that no resolution, directive, circular or other official act had been passed, issued or authorised by it sanctioning entry into, invasion of or takeover of the Park.
7. It was deposed that no County personnel, vehicles, equipment or other resources had been mobilized or deployed to or in the vicinity of the Park, and that, as at the date of swearing the Replying Affidavit, the Kenya Wildlife Service remained in full, exclusive and uninterrupted management, occupation and control of the Park, so that, on the 2nd Respondent's account, the status quo ante was "not merely formally intact but factually and physically undisturbed."
8. The 2nd Respondent took issue with annexure "JK-07," deposing that the document did not bear its official logo and was not an official document issued by it. In support of the said contention, it exhibited a letter from its County Attorney confirming its true logo.
9. The 2nd Respondent characterized the video clips, press briefing footage and social media posts annexed as "JK-02" to "JK-06" as truncated, unsubstantiated media excerpts whose authenticity and completeness had not been proved. Without prejudice to that objection, the 2nd Respondent contended that, even at their highest, the statements were personal and political remarks by the Governor addressing longstanding community grievances, not made pursuant to any resolution or official act of the 2nd Respondent.
10. The 2nd Respondent deposed that it had not authorised, sanctioned or procured any of the third-party social media calls for mass action exhibited as "JK-08". It was its position that the Application was speculative, anticipatory and premature, founded on an apprehension of a future act that had not materialized, and ought to be dismissed with costs.
11. The Applicant, in his Further Affidavit sworn on 23rd July 2026, deposed that the 2nd Respondent's denial of institutional responsibility is legally untenable given the constitutional and statutory position of the Governor as chief executive of the county. The statements were made at an official press briefing and disseminated through the county's official communications organ, using institutional rather than personal language. Therefore, the claim that no County personnel had been deployed is contradicted by the Governor's own complaint that his staff had been denied access to the Park.
12. The application was canvassed by written submissions. The Applicant's written submissions are dated 23rd July 2026, and the 2nd Respondent's Submissions are dated 23rd July 2026; the Court considered them together with the pleadings, affidavits and annexures on record, and the authorities cited therein, in arriving at this Ruling.
Submissions of the Parties
13. The applicant submitted that, following the declaration of unconstitutionality of the Contempt of Court Act, 2016, the applicable law is Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act, which confers upon the High Court the same power to punish for contempt as the High Court of Justice in England possesses, exercised in aid of the Court's inherent jurisdiction and in furtherance of Articles 10, 159 and 165 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010; and that mislabeling the enabling provision in the Application does not, and cannot, oust the Court's undoubted inherent and statutory jurisdiction to protect and vindicate its own orders.
14. It was submitted that the elements of civil contempt, as restated in Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR), namely the existence of the terms of an order, knowledge of those terms, ability to comply, and willful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply, are all made out on the record.
15. The Applicant’s position is that the orders of 30th December 2025 are clear and specific; knowledge was admitted at paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Replying Affidavit; compliance required nothing more than restraint; and the conduct particularized, namely announcing an effective date for the suspended transfer, demanding that KWS "keep off" the Park, asserting the commencement of a revenue-sharing arrangement under the suspended Deed, issuing a public ultimatum, and declaring that the Park would be taken "by peace or otherwise", constitutes the very implementation and operationalization of the suspended transfer which the very Court Orders prohibit, undertaken deliberately, publicly, and with knowledge of the orders.
16. It was further submitted, relying on Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1974] AC 273, that contempt is not confined to completed physical acts of disobedience but extends to conduct calculated to obstruct, undermine or defeat the efficacy of court orders. It was also submitted that a public ultimatum, operational directives to a state agency, and incitement of the public to occupy the subject matter of a suspended instrument are themselves completed acts of contempt because their object and tendency is to procure a fait accompli before the Petition is heard, a course this Court had already warned against in its ruling of 30th December 2025.
17. The Applicant submitted that under Articles 179(1), 179(2) and 179(4) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and Section 30 of the County Governments Act, the Governor is the chief executive of the County and the office through which the County Government speaks and acts; that the statements were made at an official press briefing, published through the county's official communications organ in the institutional plural ("we", "our"), and expressly invoked an official implementation instrument, the "Transition Implementation Report"; that the 2nd Respondent cannot approbate and reprobate by defending the impugned transfer in these very proceedings while disowning the public steps taken by its chief executive to realize it; and that the Governor's failure to swear any affidavit denying the statements, disavowing the ultimatum or undertaking to obey the orders warrants an adverse inference against him.
18. It was submitted that the contempt relied upon is not a future occupation of the Park but a completed and continuing course of conduct already undertaken, and that a party who publicly announces, with a countdown, an intention to defeat subsisting orders cannot be heard to say that the victim of the threat came to Court too soon. Further, the electronic evidence was properly certified under Sections 106A and 106B of the Evidence Act, and any residual objection as to authenticity went to weight, not admissibility, particularly where the making of the statements was not denied. The Applicant urged the Court to allow the Application as prayed for, with costs.
19. The 2nd Respondent's submissions identified three issues for determination. On the first issue, it was submitted that the Notice of Motion was pleaded and commenced under Section 4 of the Contempt of Court Act, 2016, which was declared unconstitutional in its entirety for want of public participation. Reference was made to the decision of Kenya Human Rights Commission v Attorney General; Law Society of Kenya (Interested Party) [2018] KEHC 9656 (KLR) for the proposition that the consequence of that declaration is that the applicable law reverted to Section 5 of the Judicature Act (Cap. 8) and the common law; and that, because the Application was founded on an invalidated statute, this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear and determine it, and any decision rendered is liable to be impugned as being per incuriam. Counsel relied on the decision of the Court in Republic v County Government of Nairobi & 2 others Ex-Parte Kingpost Limited [2021] KEELC 1084 (KLR) and several other decisions referred to in the submissions.
20. On the second issue, the 2nd Respondent submitted that contempt proceedings are quasi-criminal in character, attracting a standard of proof higher than the balance of probabilities, and cited, in support thereof, the case Sheila Cassatt Issenberg & another v Antony Machatha Kinyanjui [2021] KEHC 5692 (KLR) and that of Abdi v Adan & another [2025] KEHC 13199 (KLR). It was urged that the Applicant must establish, cumulatively, the existence of a clear and unambiguous order, service of or actual knowledge of the order, and willful and mala fide disobedience of it. Reference was made to the Court's decision in Wanjigi v Inspector General of Police & 2 others [2025] KEHC 2755 (KLR). It was submitted that, while the existence of the orders and the 2nd Respondent's knowledge thereof were not in dispute, willful disobedience was, and that contempt is concerned exclusively with what a person has actually and deliberately done in defiance of a clear order, not with threatened or anticipated conduct that has not materialized.
21. The 2nd Respondent's uncontroverted evidence is that no resolution, directive or official act sanctioning a takeover had been passed; that no County personnel or resources had been deployed to the Park; and that, to date, KWS remained in full and undisturbed control of the Park. Its position was that the application discloses no specific date, time, place or completed act of interference; and that statements about an intended future act, together with an ultimatum whose deadline had lapsed without the threatened takeover occurring, are not themselves the "act" required for a finding of contempt. Accordingly, there was, in law, no res upon which a finding of contempt could bite, and the application could properly be characterized as a prospective injunction dressed in the language of committal.
22. On the third issue, it was submitted that under Article 176(1) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act, the 2nd Respondent is a body corporate and a distinct juristic person, separate from the Governor as an individual state officer, capable of acting only through its lawful organs, resolutions and official acts; that while a body corporate acts through its officers, that principle does not convert every statement made by an officer, in every setting, into an official act of the corporation; that the statements attributed to the Governor, even taken at their highest, were personal and political, articulating a longstanding community grievance, and were not shown to have been made pursuant to, or to reflect, any resolution or official act of the 2nd Respondent; and that isolated public remarks by a Governor cannot, without more, be elevated into institutional disobedience by the County Government he heads. On this basis, the 2nd Respondent urged the Court to dismiss the Application with costs.
Analysis and Determination
23. Having considered the Application, the annexures, and the rival submissions and the authorities cited and relied on by the parties herein, the Court finds that the following issues arise for determination:
(i)Whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the Application; and
(ii)Whether the elements of civil contempt have been established against the Governor of Kajiado County and whether the impugned conduct is attributable to the 2nd Respondent;
(i) Whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the Application.
24. The decision in Kenya Human Rights Commission v Attorney General; Law Society of Kenya (Interested Party) [2018] KEHC 9656 (KLR) found that the Contempt of Court Act, 2016 was unconstitutional in its entirety and the applicable law reverted to Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act (Cap. 8), read with the common law and the Court's inherent jurisdiction under Article 165(3) and Article 159 of the Constitution of Kenya,2010. Having said that, I do not agree that the reference to the invalidated Act in the Notice of Motion application is fatal to the Court's jurisdiction to entertain the Application.
25. It is trite law, long settled, that where jurisdiction to grant the substantive relief sought independently exists, mere reference to a wrong or superseded provision of the law does not vitiate an application. See Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR), where the Court held that, notwithstanding the purported repeal of Section 5 of the Judicature Act by the since-invalidated Contempt of Court Act, 2016, Section 5 of the Judicature Act "still stands" and continues to govern contempt proceedings where the jurisdiction invoked in fact and in substance exists and no prejudice is occasioned to the opposite party.
26. The jurisdiction to punish for, and to restrain, contempt of its own orders is one that inheres in this Court independently of any statute. It derives from Section 5(1) of the Judicature Act, from the Court's inherent power to protect the integrity of its own process, and from Article 159(2)(d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, which enjoins courts to administer justice without undue regard to procedural technicalities.
27. In my view, the 2nd Respondent has not demonstrated, nor do I find, that it suffered any prejudice by reason of the Applicant’s reference to the said provision of the Law. It fully understood the case it had to meet, as is evident from the comprehensive Replying Affidavit and submissions filed on its behalf, which addressed the substance of the contempt allegations. To decline jurisdiction on this technical ground alone would be to elevate form over substance in a matter concerning the vindication of the Court's own authority, precisely the kind of outcome Article 159(2)(d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, forecloses. The objection as to the court’s jurisdiction to determine the matter is accordingly without merit and does not stand.
(ii)Whether the elements of civil contempt have been established against the Governor of Kajiado County and whether the impugned conduct is attributable to the 2nd Respondent
28. The elements an applicant must establish to found civil contempt are well settled in the decision of Mweru & others v National Land Commission & 2 others [2020] KEHC 9233 (KLR): (i) the existence of a clear and unambiguous order; (ii) knowledge of that order by the alleged contemnor; (iii) the ability of the alleged contemnor to comply; and (iv) wilful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply. The standard of proof, given the quasi-criminal character of contempt and the liberty interests engaged by committal, is higher than the ordinary civil standard of balance of probabilities, though it does not rise to proof beyond reasonable doubt.
29. The first two elements of the existence of a clear and unambiguous order and knowledge of that order by the alleged contemnor are not seriously in issue between the parties. The order of 30th December, 2025 is precise and unequivocal. It suspended Gazette Notice No. 15231 and the Deed of Transfer, and restored the status quo ante with respect to the operations and management of the Amboseli National Park under the 6th Respondent, pending the hearing of the Petition. The 2nd Respondent, and by extension its Governor, expressly admitted knowledge of these very orders in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Replying Affidavit; moreover, the 2nd Respondent participated in, and defended, the application that yielded the said Court Orders. The third element, the alleged contemnor's ability to comply, is self-evidently satisfied. It required only restraint from taking steps to implement the suspended instruments.
30. The live and contested question before the court is the willful and mala fide failure or refusal to comply with the Orders. On this question, the Court shall distinguish between two categories of conduct that the rival submissions in the matter tend to elide: first, actual steps taken to implement, operationalize or give effect to the suspended Deed of Transfer and Gazette Notice, which the Orders of 30th December, 2025 prohibit; and second, mere threats, predictions or expressions of political intent regarding a future, not-yet-realized physical takeover of the Park, which, without more, would fall short of the completed disobedience the law requires, as the authorities cited by the 2nd Respondent correctly emphasize.
31. On the evidence, the Court finds that the conduct complained of falls, substantially, into the first category. The Governor's own recorded and published statements are not confined to a general expression of intention to take over the Park at some unspecified future date. He was recorded as asserting that a revenue-sharing arrangement, expressly tied to the impugned transfer, had already taken effect from 1st July 2026; he is recorded as complaining that County staff had been denied access to the Park by KWS officers, an assertion which, on a fair reading, is only intelligible on the footing that County personnel had in fact been dispatched to the Park to give effect to the purported arrangement; and the official Facebook publication invokes, by name, a "Transition Implementation Report", an instrument of implementation of the very transfer suspended by this Court.
32. These are not, on their face, mere predictions of a future act; they are live assertions, made publicly and in the institutional voice, that steps to implement the suspended transfer had already been taken. This also answers the question of whether the application is premature or speculative, as submitted by the 2nd Respondent.
33. To this extent, the Court is satisfied that the Applicant has established, to the requisite standard, that directives were issued, an official implementation instrument was invoked, and operational steps, including the reported deployment of County staff, were asserted to have been taken in defiance of the orders of 30th December, 2025, notwithstanding the 2nd Respondent's bare denial that any resolution or personnel movement occurred. The Governor's own words are, in this respect, more probative than the County Secretary's institutional denial, since the County Secretary does not purport to depose to the Governor's personal knowledge, conduct or intention, and has not controverted the Governor's recorded statements. See Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1974] AC 273, as referred to in Njeru v Republic [1993] KECA 73 (KLR), that contempt is not confined to completed physical acts of disobedience but extends to conduct calculated to obstruct, undermine or defeat the efficacy of a court's orders.
34. The Court accepts, however, the force of the 2nd Respondent's submission on one narrower point: that as at the date of the Replying Affidavit, 20th July 2026, some six days after the expiry of the impugned ultimatum, the 6th Respondent remained in full, exclusive and undisturbed management, occupation and control of Amboseli National Park, and that no physical invasion, occupation or forcible takeover of the Park by the 2nd Respondent, its officers or the public has in fact occurred. This is significant not because it exonerates the Governor of the conduct already found above, but because it bears directly on the gravity of the consequences that this Court can properly visit upon him at this stage, a matter to which the Court returns below.
35. The Court has carefully considered the 2nd Respondent's submission that it is a distinct juristic person under Article 176(1) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and under Section 6(1) of the County Governments Act, separate from the Governor as an individual, and that isolated personal or political statements by the Governor cannot, without more, be elevated to institutional disobedience by the County Government. As a general proposition of law, a body corporate is not to be conflated with every statement made by any of its officers.
36. The difficulty for the 2nd Respondent is that the proposition, however sound in the abstract, does not stand especially with the particular facts of the present matter. The Governor is not merely "an officer" of the 2nd Respondent. By virtue of the provisions of Articles 179(1), 179(2) and 179(4) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, he is the head of the County Executive Committee in which the executive authority of the county is vested, and he is expressly designated "the chief executive of the county". Section 30 of the County Governments Act charges him with providing leadership in the county's governance and coordinating the functions of the county administration. A body corporate speaks and acts only through natural persons; in such a case, the Governor.
37. More decisively, the manner and context in which the impugned statements were made negate their characterization as purely personal or political speech. They were delivered not at a rally, a campaign platform, or in a private capacity, but at an official media press briefing convened at the gate of the very public asset in dispute; they were thereafter published not on a personal account but on the Facebook page of the "Governor Press Service – Kajiado County", an organ which describes itself as a "Government Organization" and as the "Governor's Press Service Unit", and which contemporaneously publishes official County Communication; and the language used was institutional and collective, "we have given KWS 7 days" and "Amboseli is ours by right", invoking an official implementation instrument.
38. It is not open to the 2nd Respondent to hold out its Governor as its official spokesperson through its own official communications channel when it suits it to explain County policy to the public, and simultaneously to disown, for the purposes of these proceedings, the very same channel and the very same office when its Governor's statements prove inconvenient.
39. The Court also considers it material that the 2nd Respondent, having actively defended the impugned Deed of Transfer and asserted its own entitlement to the management functions of the Park in these very proceedings, cannot consistently disown the public steps taken by its chief executive to realise that same entitlement; a party cannot approbate and reprobate. See Cosmas & 2 others v Natembeya, Governor, Trans Nzoia County & 8 others; Wamalwa & 3 others (Interested Parties) [2026] KEELRC 596 (KLR). For these reasons, the Court finds that the Governor's conduct, as particularized above, is attributable to the 2nd Respondent, without prejudice to the distinct question addressed below of what relief may properly be visited upon the 2nd Respondent as opposed to the Governor personally.
40. This Court then considers what relief is properly available on the material before the Court, bearing firmly in mind the distinction, recognised in the authorities cited by both parties, between the ordinary civil standard applicable to injunctive relief and the elevated, quasi-criminal standard required before a court may commit a person to civil jail or impose a punitive fine, a step that engages the liberty of the person concerned and, accordingly, demands scrupulous observance of the rules of natural justice.
41. As regards the restraining orders sought at prayer 2 of the Application, the Court is satisfied that these ought to issue. The Court has found that the 2nd Respondent, through its Governor, has already taken steps calculated to implement and operationalise the suspended Deed of Transfer, and has publicly threatened further and more drastic steps, including a purported takeover of the Park "by peace or otherwise". These findings, together with the undenied risk of public mobilisation evident from annexure "JK-08", amply justify reinforcing, by way of specific restraining orders, the conservatory orders already in force to protect the Petition from being rendered nugatory. Such orders are properly civil and protective in character, and their issuance neither requires, nor depends upon, a final finding of contempt to the elevated standard.
42. As regards the prayers for a formal finding that the Governor is in contempt, and for his committal to civil jail or the imposition of a fine, the Court must proceed with greater caution. While the Court has found, at paragraphs 27 to 32 above, that a strong prima facie case of wilful disobedience has been established against the Governor personally, the Court is mindful that: (i) the Governor has not personally been made a party to, nor has he personally appeared or been heard in, these proceedings; (ii) he has not sworn an affidavit and has therefore not had the opportunity, on oath, to explain, deny or contextualise the statements attributed to him, nor to purge any contempt found; and (iii) an order of committal to civil jail, being penal in substance, ought not, consistently with the rules of natural justice and the elevated standard of proof applicable, to be made in the absence of the person sought to be committed, without that person first being accorded a real and personal opportunity to be heard and to show cause, however compelling the case may presently appear on the Affidavit filed by the 2nd Respondent's County Secretary. See Akber Abdullah Kassam Esmail v Equip Agencies Ltd & 4 others [2014] KECA 627 (KLR) and Kioni & 3 others v National Disciplinary Committee of the Jubilee Party & 2 others; Chege (Contemnor) [2024] KEHC 11441 (KLR).
43. The Court accordingly declines, at this stage, to make the final orders of committal or of a punitive fine sought at prayers 5 and 6 of the Application.
Final Orders
44. In the exercise of the Court's inherent jurisdiction to protect its own process, the Court finds, holds, and orders that:
a). The 2nd Respondent's objection to the jurisdiction of this Court be and is hereby dismissed;
b). The Governor is hereby personally summoned to appear before the Court on 16th September 2026, in his personal capacity, and upon oath, to show cause why he should not be committed for contempt of the orders of 30th December, 2025, or otherwise penalized;
c). The prayers for committal to civil jail and/or a fine be and are hereby res
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