The High Court on Thursday dismissed all the cases lodged before it challenging President William Ruto’s order to lift the ban on Genetically Modified Crops and Foods in Kenya.
Justice Lawrence Mugambi, during a sitting at Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi, threw out the petitions that had been filed challenging the lifting of the ban on genetically modified food whose lifting had been a controversial development.
Mugambi ruled that the issue had been fairly dealt with at the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi in 2023 as part of a suit filed by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).
The court also directed that since the matter had been fairly dealt with, it would therefore not transfer any costs to the petitioners.
He ruled that no Kenyan would be predisposed to any health-associated risks from the cultivation and consumption of GMOs, thereby dismissing LSK's case.
“In view of the above, the court hereby finds that the current petition is res judicata. The same is struck out the same with no orders as to costs,” Justice Mugambi ruled.
In the ruling by the Environment Court, Justice Oscar Angote ruled that LSK could not prove in its petition that the GMOs would be a health risk.
“With all these institutions, save for NEMA which has not issued an Environmental Impact Assessment Licence, we should be confident that our health and environment are in good hands, it cannot be true that they have all conspired to expose the rest of the population to the calamities alluded to in the petition, at least not from the evidence on record,” Angote ruled.
“The evidence before me shows that the country has put in place robust frameworks with inbuilt structures which must be met before they consider and determine applications approval and transfer, handling and use of genetically modified organisms,” Angote added in the landmark ruling.
President Ruto, in early October 2022, signed an executive order lifting a ten-year ban that had been slapped on the growth and cultivation of Genetically Modified Crops and Foods,(GMOs).
The executive order followed a Cabinet resolution to have the ban lifted amid protests from a section of Kenyans who had argued that the move would have devastating impacts on the lives of Kenyans.
Today's ruling is set to revitalize the debate on the safety of GMOs, which has been a contentious issue with Kenyans and professionals suggesting differentiated points of view about the decision.
