Kenya's land commission says 7,000 public land cases await new procedural rules
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The National Land Commission says 7,000 cases challenging how public land passed into private hands cannot proceed until new regulations are gazetted, with the backlog potentially reaching 10,000 by the end of the year.
The National Land Commission (NLC) is holding about 7,000 pending cases in which claimants challenge how public land was transferred into private ownership, and says it cannot begin or resume hearings until new procedural rules are in place. Vice-chairperson Dr Julie Oseko told the Nation that the cases fall under the commission's "review of grants and dispositions of public land" mandate, which examines whether such transfers were lawful.
"We have 7,000 cases pending, not even to mention the ones that we have started receiving now," Oseko said, estimating that the caseload could reach 10,000 by the end of the year as awareness grows and more Kenyans file claims. The 7,000 figure excludes the commission's separate historical land injustice caseload, which she did not put a combined total on.
Part of the backlog is inherited. Oseko said the commission's first and second teams left a substantial number of part-heard files, and that earlier attempts to write regulations were thrown out because the commission could not show evidence of public participation. The current rule-making exercise follows amendments to the National Land Commission Act that took effect on 4 November 2025; the revised review-of-grants provision covers public land grants or dispositions issued before 27 August 2010.
The amended law sets a five-year window for reviewing grants, a timetable the commission's own notice inviting public comment describes as requiring the work to be completed by November 2030. Historical land injustice claims run from 15 June 1895 to 27 August 2010. In a judgment delivered on 28 November 2025 on a petition by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah, the High Court declared that the Constitution does not provide for statutory time limits on the commission's mandates.
Under Section 14 of the amended Act, anyone with an interest in a disputed grant must be notified of the review, given an opportunity to appear before the commission and allowed access to relevant documents. The law directs the commission to order the registrar to revoke a title found to have been unlawfully acquired, provides for corrective steps where an acquisition was merely irregular, and protects a bona fide purchaser for value who had no notice of a defect. Oseko said the two draft regulations will be sent to Parliament once consultation is complete and must be gazetted before hearings resume.
An NLC official told a public participation forum in Nairobi that the earlier regulations were rejected because the commission had not demonstrated public participation, adding that all commissioners sit on the Review of Grants and Dispositions Committee and will hear cases in panels once the rules are approved.