Moral Advocacy in Kenya (Essay Sample)

Appraisal of Moral Advocacy in Kenya Name Institution If ever there is a profession whose practice confronts the practitioner with hard-to-solve moral conflicts and ethical dilemmas, it is law. This dilemma stems from the fact that in any legal process, there is one party that is culpable, yet both parties to the conflict are represented by legal advocates keen on representing the clients’ interests to the best of their knowledge. In the practice of law, a client’s interest, whether or not the client is culpable, is to win a civil or criminal case. The moral dilemma of the lawyer in this situation is representing the interests of a client that the advocate has reasonable cause to believe is guilty. At the same time, the law gives everyone, including the guilty, the right to legal representation, and it is the lawyer’s moral obligation to provide representation when requested by a client. In the spirit of fairness and non-discrimination, a lawyer will be hard-put, and in fact a violation of the professional code of conduct, to deny a client services on any grounds. In the essay “A proposal for the moral practice of Law,” Kathleen Bean examines the moral spectrum of legal advocacy whereby lawyers are confronted with two conflicting moral arguments in regards to the legal representation of potentially culpable clients. On the one extreme is the argument for zealous representation, which is informed by the concept “role morality.” Under this view, a lawyer is under legal obligation to defend the interests of the client without consideration of moral issues inherent in the case, such as whether the client is guilt, or the use of trickery to win the case. At the other end is the concept of truth and integrity, which requires lawyers to adhere to personal moral values by ensuring that their legal representation does not violate acceptable moral values or help a culpable client to escape justice. With reference to Bean’s article, this essay critically examines the morality of advocacy in Kenya. It argues that moral advocacy in third world countries like Kenya is weak or nonexistent not only because of the corrupt political, economic and social environment favors role morality lawyers who are willing to set integrity aside to achieve personal (monetary) and client interests. Kenya’s economic, political and social environment makes advocacy a morally and ethically challenging profession since it plunges the practitioner into a man-eat-man jungle where the modus operandi is informed by the Darwinian law of survival for the fittest. Consequently, the functioning of the legal justice system is not governed by the strict adherence to the rule of law, fairness and justice, but by one’s ability to manipulate the system to their advantage. Deontological perspective support this approach since lawyers view their role as using any means possible to achieve the client’s goal of winning a case. This is not surprising given the social and political climate in Kenya, which reflect the country’s moral state. Kenya has the dubious record of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, which naturally influence the functioning and fairness of the legal justice system. Just to illustrate, the country’s leadership has for over a decade lacked the legitimacy to govern, owing to the fact that it is widely believed that since the bungled 2007 presidential elections, the people of Kenya have never been governed by a president elected by the majority of voters. Thus, there is a perceived moral rot from the top, whose illegitimacy and lack of the moral authority to govern negatively affects the country’s legal institutions such as the judiciary and the police. To survive in power, the political class must either subvert the law by way of suppressing political dissent, or go to bed with corrupt cartels that control the economy. Indeed, Kenya’s former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga labeled the country’s economy as a “bandit economy” (Lindijer, 2016), given the grip that corruption cartels have on the financial system and the control of the entire economy by a few, well-connected individuals. Thus, Kenya qualifies as a man-eat-man society that has no place for moral advocacy. Consequently, lawyers who subscribe to the truth and integrity concept find it hard to practice law in the country since the system is skewed in favor of the ruling elite and anyone with the money to buy their way out of trouble. The most successful legal practitioners in Kenya, accordingly, are defense attorneys who are politically connected to represent high-profile public figures accused of mega-corruption scandals, and corporate multinationals keen on avoiding environmental responsibility. For example, the Goldenberg Scandal that bankrupted the Kenyan economy in the early 1990s took ten years to be brought into the corridors of justice, but the culprits escaped justice because their legal counsel was able to exploit loopholes in the law. Most recently, the country’s president and deputy were acquitted by the International Criminal Court for charges of crimes against humanity related to the 2007 post-election violence, due to disappearance of witnesses and recanting of statements by witnesses (BBC, 2013). This outcome suggests witness intimidation and possible bribery to weaken the prosecution’s case. Although this incidence relates to an international court, that fact that it involves the country’s top leaders reflect the moral state of the Kenyan legal system. The ability to intimidate and bribe witnesses suggests that moral advocacy in Kenya is either nonexistent, or so weak that it is unable to take on the corrupt system. Essentially, moral advocacy in Kenya guided by the principles of truth and integrity means fighting the system, which brings one into direct confrontation with the reality of corruption in the courts. Another scenario that points to the failure of mor...