Justice Mumbi Ngugi
Trustee
Justice Mumbi Ngugi (MBS) is a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Kenya. Until her appointment to the Court of Appeal in 2021, Justice Ngugi served as the Presiding Judge in the Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court in Nairobi. She also served in the Constitutional and Human Rights Division in Nairobi and as Presiding Judge in the High Court of Kenya at Kericho.
In the ten years that she served in the High Court, Justice Ngugi was instrumental in the development of human rights jurisprudence in Kenya, particularly in relation to the social economic rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. She has also made significant contributions to the emerging anti-corruption jurisprudence in Kenya in the period she served as the Presiding Judge of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division between March 2019 and June 2021.
Justice Ngugi is a long-term advocate of human rights in Kenya. She has been involved in advocacy work for the rights of women and children, as well as the housing rights of the urban poor. She has also been a prominent activist for the rights of persons with albinism in Kenya.
Prior to her appointment to the bench, Justice Ngugi was a prolific writer and researcher on human rights issues. She was for six years, the lead researcher and compiler of the Kenya Human Rights Commission Bi-annual Human Rights report. She was also a long-term columnist on social and legal issues for Kenya’s leading newspapers, the Sunday National and The Standard.
Justice Ngugi holds a Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB) from the University of Nairobi and a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in Commercial and Corporate Law from the London School of Economic, University of London.
Justice Ngugi has been the recipient of several awards, both locally and internationally. She was the recipient of the 2013 International Commission of Jurists-Kenya (ICJ-K) Jurist of the Year award, the Law Society of Kenya Distinguished Service Award 2017, the C.B. Madan ward 2018 and the Transparency International Judiciary Integrity Award 2019. In 2021, Justice Ngugi was honoured by the Centre for International Human Rights of the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law with the Global Jurist of the Year award for exemplifying in her career the advancement of international human rights.