Christine Nkonge
Director
Ms Nkonge has extensive knowledge of Kenya’s constitutional and public law, having practiced in the country for over sixteen years. In her roles as the Executive Director and Litigation Counsel at Katiba Institute, Ms Nkonge not only provided leadership to a team of highly skilled litigators, but she also personally litigated groundbreaking cases on constitutional issues at all levels of courts in Kenya, including on land rights, social and economic rights, death penalty, fair trial, freedom of assembly and association and women’s rights. Ms Nkonge also litigated cases on behalf of minority and vulnerable groups, such as rights of sexual minorities, citizenship and refugees. Ms Nkonge’s practice seeks accountability from government agencies to entrench the rule of law and justice for victims in Kenya and East Africa.
Ms Nkonge has adviced on strategic litigation across the continent on a variety of issues including the rights of indigenous peoples to community land in Tanzania and Botswana, protection of civic space and registration of non-profit organisations in Tanzania, the right to a clean environment in Uganda and Tanzania (on the East African crude oil pipeline), the rights of sexual minorities in Uganda, Malawi and Ghana and constitution making in Sudan and Tanzania. She has provided legal advice to teams litigating cases before the African Court on Human and People’s Rights and the East African Court of Justice. She has trained litigators and judges on diverse constitutional topics and the use of strategic litigation as a tool for social change.
Ms Nkonge also has significant knowledge of investigation, documentation and prosecution of the crimes of rape/defilement, assault, torture, murder and mass killings committed by state or non-state agents. As a Staff Attorney at International Justice Mission (IJM) Kenya, Ms Nkonge collaborated with national and foreign state agencies to investigate, document and prosecute these crimes. Ms Nkonge intervened in Court as either the victim’s advocate or a special prosecutor, for specifically assigned defilement cases by the Attorney General. As a result, Ms Nkonge has knowledge on identification of witnesses and perseveration of physical evidence, analysis of evidence to gauge probability of success, and admissibility standards before Kenyan courts. Ms Nkonge also represented clients in tortious claims for malicious prosecution, rape, assaults and deaths due to unlawful use of force by government officials.
Ms Nkonge holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and a Master in Laws (Human Rights) degree from Central European University, Hungary.