Hon. Mr. Justice (Prof) Joel Mwaura Ngugi
Justice (Prof.) Joel Ngugi is a Judge of Appeal in Kenya currently serving in Kisumu. He also presently serves as the Chair of the National Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Alternative Justice Systems Policy. Justice (Prof.) Ngugi is a former High Court Judge and Head of Judiciary Transformation Secretariat and former Director of the Kenya Judiciary Academy (KJA) in 2012 ¨C 2016 ¨C a time of rapid growth at the KJA.?
Justice (Prof.) Ngugi has served in many major Committees and Taskforces in the Judiciary of Kenya.? They include Committees or Taskforces that have generated major judicial policies or guidelines ¨C including the Court-Annexed Mediation Pilot; Sentencing Guidelines; Bail & Bond Policy Guidelines; Active Case Management Guidelines; and the AJS Policy.
As a judge, he has won a number of prestigious awards including the Jurist of the Year Award (JOYA) in 2022, National Integrity Award (by Transparency International) in 2023 and Legal Tech Judge of the Year in 2021 and 2022. He was most recently named as the Leverhulme Distinguished Visiting Professor in residence at Cardiff University in the Wales, UK.
Prior to joining the Judiciary, Justice (Prof.) Ngugi was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington (Seattle, Washington) where he won several teaching awards including two awards as the Professor of the Year in 2005 and 2011.?
Justice (Prof.) Ngugi is widely published and has made more than two hundred scholarly and professional presentations at various conferences, colloquia and professional workshops and academic gatherings.
Justice (Prof.) Ngugi is licensed in and has practiced law in Kenya and Massachusetts, US. He obtained a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B) from the University of Nairobi in 1996; Post-graduate Diploma in Legal Education from Kenya School of Law; and his Masters in Law (LLM) and Doctoral degrees (SJD) in Law from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1998 and 2002 respectively.? His doctoral dissertation won the Laylin Prize in International Law at Harvard Law School in 2002.