Administration of Justice for Urban Refugees in Kenya: Perspectives of Legal Experts
Mercy CHEPKIRUI LAGAT, Mambo!, no. 112, 2026.
International and national protection frameworks guarantee refugees the right to access to justice. However, the urbanization of forced displacement in Kenya has reconfigured this refugee protection regime. Unlike the traditional and humanitarian justice systems established in camps, refugees residing in urban areas rely on domestic judicial systems. This shift creates a state of dual vulnerability where their legal status overlap with the structural marginality of informal urban settlements. By focusing on the viewpoint’s legal experts’, this study demonstrates that there is a systemic disconnect between recognised rights and the administration and access to justice in practice. Institutional exclusions, bureaucratic red tapes, and fragmented law enforcement have turned the pursuit of legal redress into a contested process. Access to justice is thus shaped more by professional discretion and spatial inequalities than by formal constitutional guarantees.
