Abdul Noormohamed is the Chairperson of Katiba Institute’s Board of Directors. He serves as the Director of Civic Voice, an initiative dedicated to amplifying youth-led civic engagement, tech justice, and democratic renewal. Previously, he served as Vice President for Africa at Luminate, where he led regional strategy on digital rights, civic participation, and public interest media. He has also served as the Executive Director of the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ-Kenya) and held grant-making roles at the Open Society Foundations (Eastern Africa). Abdul was formerly the Head of Legal and Redress at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. A seasoned human rights advocate and policy strategist, he serves on the board of the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) and sits on the Human Rights and Rule of Law Committee of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association.  He holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Public International Law from University College London, a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the University of Nairobi and is a Chevening Scholar. Across his career, Abdul has championed accountability, protected civic space, and built coalitions to advance justice, equality, and inclusion across the African continent

Yash Pal Ghai studied law at the University of Oxford and Harvard Law School. He taught at the then University of East Africa, in Dar es Salaam, and was its first African national Dean. He later taught at Yale and the Universities of Uppsala, Warwick, and Hong Kong and was a visiting professor at several other universities. He has been involved in various capacities in making over 20 constitutions from Papua New Guinea (1975). He chaired the 2000- 2004 phase of the Constitution in Kenya. He was co-author of the book, which is still read by Kenyan law students (Ghai & McAuslan, Public Law and Political Change in Kenya (Oxford University Press, 1970). He and Jill Cottrell Ghai spend much of their time working for Katiba Institute pro bono.

Jill is the chairperson of the Board of Directors at Katiba Institute. She taught law at universities in Nigeria, the UK and Hong Kong for over 40 years, having studied law at the London School of Economics and the Yale Law School. Towards the end of that career she was particularly involved in teaching economic social and cultural rights. And she also had the chance to act as advisor on the constitution making processes of several countries: including East Timor, Nepal, Maldives, Iraq and Somalia. Since 2008 she has been involved in educating about, and pushing for the implementation of, the 2010 Constitution of Kenya. Jill and Yash Ghai authored the first book on that Constitution (Kenya’s Constitution: An Instrument for Change).

John Sibi-Okumu taught French for nearly 30 years. He is an accomplished actor, writer, journalist and television presenter. He has acted in films including Born Free (1975), and The Constant Gardener. Over the years Sibi-Okumu has appeared in some 40 lead roles on stage, including Sophocles’ King Oedipus; and Shakespeare’s Romeo, Oberon and Shylock. Sibi-Okumu himself has written various plays, including In Search of the Drum Major on the American Civil Rights Movement, Minister Karibu! Elements, Role Play, Meetings, and Kaggia. His is also a distinguished director (the musical Mo Faya) a journalist and TV personality. He also writes regularly for AWAAZ – Voices of the South Asian Diaspora.

Justice (ret’d) Dr. Willy Mutunga is the retired Chief Justice of Kenya and President of the Supreme Court of Kenya. He recently visited the Maldives as the Commonwealth Secretary-General’s Special Envoy. He has lectured at the University of Nairobi, Faculty of Law. A committed activist in the pro-democracy movement in Kenya since the 1970s, Dr. Mutunga has worked in a number of prominent human rights organizations throughout the country and has also been an active member of the university staff trade unions. He served as the Chair of the Law Society of Kenya from 1993-1995. He is also the author of a number of widely published articles, on the rights of detainees, the role of NGOs and civil society in democratization, the constitutional rights of Kenya’s nomad pastoralists, and the rights of tenants, as well as a book on the movement for a new constitution in the 1990s. He is also the former board member of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal.

Christine Gakii Nkonge is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Public Interest Litigator on constitutional and human rights matters in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. She graduated with a Bachelor in Law from the University of Nairobi and a Master of Law in Human Rights in International Justice Specialization from the Central European University, Budapest. She has litigated a wide spectrum of criminal cases before magistrates’ courts in Kenya and has ample experience in children’s rights. She has also appeared before the High Court of Kenya, as counsel in a number of human rights violations.

Dr. Liz is a political scientist and activist scholar. She was born in New Zealand and is a citizen of Britain and Kenya, where she has been since 1988. Liz works directly with governments, civil societies, and communities to discuss customary land rights. Her ambition since 1974 has been to secure their recognition as existing and lawful property rights, including the forests and rangelands they typically own in common. Liz has also been instrumental in the evolving wave of community-owned and managed Protected Areas in Asia and Africa. She has facilitated community land networks in Africa, especially, and was a co-founder of www.landmarkmap.org, which maps community lands globally. She has assisted KI in relevant litigation in Kenya.

Mr. Ouko is the Executive Director of Edrak Associates, a firm registered in Kenya specialising in Public and Private Sector Governance, Financial Management, Accountability and Audit Organisation Capacity Assessment and Development, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. The firm also focuses on Third Party Monitoring (TPM) services to commissioning organisations, donors and partners to ensure greater accountability and overall compliance. Before joining Edrak Associates, he was the Auditor-General of the Republic of Kenya from August 2011 to August 2019, diligently executing his duties with utmost independence and integrity. He served in various capacities at the African Development Bank for over 24 years from March 1987 to August 2011, where he managed, directed and supervised audits, anti-corruption and fraud investigation functions for over 12 years cumulatively. Mr Ouko is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (FCPA).