National Council for Law Reporting

Milimani Commercial Courts, Ground Floor

Ngong Road

P.O. Box 10443-00100

Tel (+254 020) 2712 767

Fax (+254 020) 2712 694 Nairobi-Kenya

KLR GUIDELINES FOR THE BENCH BULLETIN

The Bench Bulletin is the definitive intelligence briefing for Kenya's judicial officers, the law practitioner, managers and the business people. It is a quarterly digest of recent developments in law, particularly, case law, new legislation in the form of Acts of Parliament, rules and regulations, pending legislation contained in Bills tabled before Parliament and selected Legal Notices and Gazette Notices. It is also meant to keep the general public updated on the events in which the Council has engaged in within the last quota.

  1. ELIGIBILITY OF PERSONS TO SUBMIT CONTENT;

Subject to approval by the Editor, the following categories of people shall be eligible to submit content for publication in the Bench Bulletin:

  1. All persons employed within the Council; and
  2. Judicial Officers (judges and magistrates);
  3. Lawyers;
  4. Members of the public
  1. CONTENT TO BE SUBMITTED;
  1. Write-ups on Judicial Decisions

The judicial decisions to be submitted for the Bench Bulletin should be judgments that contain a statement of facts, the submissions of the advocates/parties for and against the case and the reasons upon which the court based the ruling/judgment. The report should be prepared in simple language avoiding legalese or supplying simple translation where legalese is necessary. The case should be presented in written pros form as a report.

  1. Criteria for the Selection of the Reportable Cases;

With respect to the criteria for the selection of the reportable cases, the Bench Bulletin will carry judicial opinions that satisfy the criteria set out in the Editorial Policy. The overriding consideration shall be to report judicial opinions which make material contribution to the Kenyan or international jurisprudence. The emphasis will therefore be on judicial opinions, preferably of a court of last resort, which are precedent setting. Such cases will include but will not be limited to:

  1. Those interpreting the language of legislation;
  2. Those in which the a judge applies a principle which although well established, has not been applied for many years and may be regarded as obsolete;
  3. Those in which the court sets out deliberately to clarify the law for the benefit of lower courts and the teaching of law;
  4. Those in which a judge restates or abrogates an existing principle of law or restates the principle in terms of a particular applicability to local jurisdiction;
  5. Those where a court states its review on a point of practice or procedure;
  6. Occasional judgments interpreting clauses found in contracts, wills, articles, and other documents;
  7. Occasional judgments indicating the measure of awards being with regard to quantum of damages for personal injury, death, defamation, etc;
  8. Judgments delivered in cases raising a matter of public interest or those which are for some other reason, are particularly instructive
  1. Cases NOT to be included in the Bench Bulletin;
  1. Judicial opinions which pass without discussion or consideration, and which may not be regarded as precedent-setting;
  2. Judicial opinions which are substantially repetitions of what is reported already;
  3. Judicial opinions which, though tending to make a material contribution to Kenyan jurisprudence, are not the opinions of a court of last resort and the point of law raised by them has not been finally settled by a closure of litigation.
  1. The scope of the Bench Bulletin shall include selected judicial opinions from;
  1. The Supreme court of Kenya;
  2. The Court of Appeal of Kenya;
  3. The High Court of Kenya; and

Subject to the permission of the Editor:

  1. The East African Court of Justice;
  2. The COMESA Court of Justice;
  3. The supreme Court of the United Kingdom; and
  4. Any other such court jurisdiction as may be authorized by the Editor.
  1. Indexing and uploading of case;

The case reported should already be available in the case-search feature of the NCLR website. The person reporting should make prior arrangements to have the case indexed and uploaded on the website by the time it is published in the Bench Bulletin.

  1. Anonymization;

Care should be taken to block out the identities of certain parties whose identity is required to be concealed as a matter of law (for instance children who are the victims of offences) or as a matter of courtesy (for instance complainants who are the victims of sexual offences). For the comprehensive list of the cases to be redacted refer to Anonymization Manual.

  1. Presentation of the case summary;

The report should have the following:

  1. Title of the case summary
  2. Case Parties and number
  3. Short title capturing essence of the decision;
  4. Station where the case was delivered
  5. Coram of the court
  6. Date of delivery
  7. Name of the contributor
  8. A narrative of the essential facts and the decision.
  9. the points contended for by counsel both for and against the issue;
  10. The grounds on which the opinion is based;
  11. the court’s deliberations and holdings
  1. Publishing timelines;

The Bench Bulletin is a time-bound quarterly publication.It is therefore important that contributors submit their write-ups on time. For the sake of clarity, the contributions should be received no later than the last Friday of the month preceding its published (the last Friday of Feb, May, August & Nov)

  1. Manner in which reports are to be prepared;

With respect to the manner in which the Reports in the Bench Bulletin should be prepared,

  1. They should be accurate;
  2. They should be full, in the sense that they should contain everything material and useful;
  3. They should be concise as is consistent;
  4. They should be uniform and standardized so that there is minimal variation in style and structure.

Although thesubmissionsshould not be sullied with the reporters’ opinion, bias, preconceptions and judgment, where a reporter is privy to another case with similar facts that support the report they are preparing then they may include excerpts of that other case in order to give a comprehensive background to the case being reported. However, the reporter should not depart from the usual simple narrative by being sensational and showing an intimacy with the facts or the law which goes beyond the judge’s own analysis of the evidence. This is not permissible and it is unnecessary. A statement of the facts giving rise to the claim, or a defence, accompanied by reference to the relevant statutory provision, should make the position clear.

The submissions should be written in the past tense, being a report of the rulings and judgments delivered in the three months preceding the publication of the Bench Bulletin.

  1. Law Reform issues;

Judicial opinions are an important barometer for evaluating the constitutionality, propriety, effectiveness, redundancy, applicability and utility of statutory legislation. Judicial pronouncements relating to one or more aspects of constitutional and statutory law that are in need of reform are an important driver of the law reform process. As such, it is the duty of a law reporter, during the course of preparing summaries in the Bench Bulletin, to identify such pronouncements and to bring them to the special attention of both the Attorney General and the Law Reform Commission.

  1. Descriptions of Parties in the Report in the Bench Bulletin.

Parties referred to in write-ups should not be referred to by name but by their status, such as plaintiff, defendant, applicant, complainant, landlord, tenant, husband, shipowner, charterer, cargo owner, the Republic, appellant, respondent, etc.

Where parties are referred to in terms of their relationship to one another as litigants (e.g. plaintiff and defendant or appellant and respondent) the relationship chosen should be either that in the court of first instance or that in the court the proceedings of which are the subject of the report are concerned; it should never be the relationship in an intermediate court (although, of course, the parties may have the same relationship in both the intermediate court and the final court). It is desirable that the parties should be given the same designation as that given to them by the judge in the judgment. However, an occasion will arise when it is not necessary to be consistent.

In cases where there are several interlocutory applications within the same suit, use the parties are to be described using the designations that relate to the most recent application e.g. 1st applicant or 2nd applicant and 1st respondent or 2nd respondent (where respondents or applicant are more than one). In such cases, it also makes it clear for the reader to state at the beginning, for instance, “The applicant was the unsuccessful plaintiff in the lower court….” because by this the law reporter has indicated that he or she has committed to describing the party as “applicant” throughout the case summary.

Except for purpose of protecting their privacy (whose particulars are in the anonymization guidelines) parties should not be referred to by initial letters unless to adopt another course would result in extremely cumbersome references. In instances where it is necessary to refer to a party by initials, the initial to be chosen in each instance should be the first letter of the party’s surname or the significant name of the company referred to.

Cases may be referred to by name within the narrative text of the write-up. Where it is necessary to refer to a rule of law which has been established by well-known case, unless it is cumbersome, the rule should be referred to by a reference to the name of the case and a brief description of the content of the rule. For example, when referring to ‘the rule in Andrews v Partington’ reference should be made to ‘the rule that the class of persons to benefit closed on the eldest member of the class attaining the prescribed vesting age’.

  1. Checklist before submission;

When preparing the report, it is important to have the following as a quick checklist:

  1. Is the case available on
  2. Does the case fall within the immediate preceding quota for reporting?
  3. Does the write up use simple and flowing language and conform to the editorial standards?
  4. Are the identities of persons who need to be protected redacted?
  5. Have I proof read my article and corrected all grammatical issues?

If all these questions are answered in the affirmative then proceed to submit your report.

  1. UK Supreme Court Cases;

There shall always be included in the Bench Bulletina summary of a decision of the UK Supreme Court. The page on which the summary is displayed should always include the message: “Published with the permission of the United Kingdom Supreme Court”.

  1. Departmental Reports:

All departments are welcome to prepare write-ups for submission in the Bench Bulletin. The write-ups should include the activities that have taken place in the department in the preceding quarter. The write-ups should be topical, relevant, of general public interest and geared towards advancing the objectives of the Council. However, these writes-up are not limited to legal material or departmental matters.

  1. Images;

Submissions may be accompanied by an image. The image should be representative of the topic on hand. For example, if submitting content on dress code for the work place, please make sure the image is of an officially dressed person, or at least an office setting. The image should be clear and will be automatically cropped to fit the page.

  1. Content

The write-up shall contain a headline, the writer’s name, the month in which the write-up is being prepared and a brief paragraph clearly describing the content of the write-up. The content itself must be original. Where a write-up contains excerpts from other sources care must be taken to have the material properly referenced and the sources acknowledged. It is upon the writer to ensure that the references and sources have been cited properly. Citations shall follow internationally accepted citation standards.

The write-up shall have a word count of no less that 1200 and no more than 2000 words.

  1. Moderation

All submissions must be channeled through the team leader of the department for moderation. Where the write-ups do not comply with the guidelines, the writers will be notified of the status of their submission and shall have the option of either modifying it to adhere to the set standards or withdrawing it all together.

  1. TABLE OF CONTENT TO BE SUBMITTED

Feature/Article / Content Contributor
1. / The list of Council Members / Snr. Law Reporter, Editorial Department
2. / What they Said / Snr. Law Reporter, Editorial Department – excerpts from judgment reported in the BB
3. / Editors Note / Editor – opening statement giving a brief of what the BB issue is about.
5. / Feature Story (BB thematic story) / Editor/Snr. Ass. Editor
6. / Citizen Jane / Editor – satirical material to be supplied for the cartoon strip
7. / Departmental Reports / Editorial Department
Research and Development Department – law reform issues arising in the last quota
Laws of Kenya Department – Legislative updates from the last quota
Information Computer Technology
8. / Life Style Feature / All members of staff
9. / Article from the Bench / As and when received
10. / Case Digests / Supreme Court
Court of Appeal
High Court
Supreme Court of England

These guidelines are supplemented by and are to be read along with the following guidelines:

  1. KLR Law Reporter’s Manual;
  2. KLR Anonymization Guidelines;
  3. The KLR in-house style guide for copy reading and proofreading of judicial opinions;
  4. The KLR in-house style guide for final reading; and
  5. The KLR in-house style guide for lay-out of judicial opinions.

Prepared in February, 2012 by Monica Achode - H.o.D Editorial Department