A motorist fined Ksh200,000 for careless driving has won his appeal at the High Court after the court found that the offense he was charged with no longer exists under Kenyan law.
In a judgment delivered at the High Court in Isiolo, the judge overruled the conviction of Daniel Mwangi Munyaka and ordered that the Ksh200,000 fine he had paid be refunded. The court ruled that the traffic offense of “careless driving” ended after amendments to the Traffic Act, meaning it could not support a criminal conviction.
“The appellant was convicted for an offense that is not known in law,” the judge said, noting that criminal liability can only arise from offenses expressly created by statute.
Munyaka had been convicted in a magistrate’s court and given the option of paying the Ksh200,000 fine or serving a three-year jail term. He subsequently challenged both the conviction and the sentence at the High Court.
In his appeal, Munyaka argued that the charge was defective because the offense cited by the prosecution had been removed from the law. He also said his conviction violated the constitutional principle that a person can only be punished for conduct that is defined as an offense under written law.
The High Court agreed, ruling that the trial court erred when it proceeded with a charge that had no legal basis. It said the conviction could not stand because the offense charged was unknown under the legal framework in force at the time.
The court set aside the sentence and ordered that the fine he had paid be refunded, effectively clearing him of any criminal liability arising from the case.
The dispute stemmed from amendments to Kenya’s Traffic Act, which changed how road traffic offenses are defined.
During the appeal, the court examined whether careless driving was still a recognized offense under the law when Munyaka was charged and prosecuted and concluded that the offense had been repealed and could not support the prosecution.
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