CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya

Open-knowledge reference entry

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ5261003 ↗
Source-derived summary

The deputy chief justice of Kenya is the deputy to the chief justice and deputy president of the Supreme Court of Kenya. The office is established under Article 163 of the Kenyan Constitution. The current deputy chief justice is Lady Justice Philomena Mwilu.

The office remained vacant from October 12, 2012 following the resignation of Nancy Makokha Baraza Court of Appeal Judge Kalpana Rawal was nominated by the JSC to fill the position. Judge Kalpana Rawal was retired by the Supreme Court of Kenya after a case on retirement age was dismissed at the Supreme Court of Kenya on 14 June 2016.

Appointment and tenure of office

The deputy chief justice is selected by the Judicial Service Commission following an open recruitment process before formal appointment by the president. The candidate nominated for appointment must be vetted and approved by the National Assembly.

Just like the chief justice and other judges of the Supreme Court, a candidate for the deputy chief justice must possess a minimum of 15 years experience in law.

Unlike the chief justice who is limited to a maximum of 10 years in office, the deputy chief justice serves until retirement at the age of 70, or when one is removed from office for gross misconduct.

Duties

The mandate of the deputy chief justice is to serve as the deputy head of the judiciary as well as the vice president of the Supreme Court of Kenya.

Editorial summary

“Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya” enters the record as open-knowledge reference entry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Deputy, Chief and Justice can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012, 2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Deputy, Chief and Justice.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Deputy, Chief and Justice provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5261003. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2012 and 2016.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya primary sources, Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya archive and Deputy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.