Report on Citizenship Law Kenya Caroline Nalule 1. Introduction Formal citizenship laws in Kenya can be traced back to the immediate pre-independence period when the Independence Constitution of Kenya was being crafted by both Kenyan elites and the retiring British administrators. Kenya attained independence on 12 December 1963, which was also the pivotal date with regards to modes of citizenship acquisition and loss in the newly independent state. In 1964, Kenya officially became a republic. As this report shall reveal, there have been various iterations of Kenya citizenship law grounded in its constitution, which have been altered depending mainly on the political, and the socio-economic tides at a particular period in Kenya’s ambivalent constitutional and political development history. Since attaining independence, Kenya has only had one widely participatory constitutional process that culminated in its current Constitution promulgated in 2010. Hitherto, the 1963 Constitution (the independence Constitution) underwent numerous amendments and modifications, which in 1969 were consolidated into one single Constitution document. There were subsequent amendments, but most notably in 1985, which amendment specifically affected some of the provisions on citizenship. Most of the amendments, however, effected between 1969 and 2008 were mainly more about political leveraging with some of the major changes including the introduction of a one-party state, its abolition years later and the re-introduction of a multi-party state. Yet, the constitution’s provisions on citizenship have been the basis of the citizenship regime in Kenya from independence to the present day. Demographically, Kenya has an estimated population of 47.6 million1 constituted of at least 44 officially recognised ethnic groups2. Ethnicity has always not only been a sensitive issue in Kenya, but has also been both politically decisive and divisive. Ethnic tensions were a major factor contributing to the violence that erupted following the presidential elections in 2007, as a consequence of which the country embarked on a path of national reconciliation, which in a way catalysed the completion of the constitution review process that resulted into 1 Results from the 2019 census available at 2019census.knbs.or.ke accessed on 4 January 2020. Initially, there were 42 recognised ethnic communities, but in 2017, the Makonde and the Indians were added onto the list. See Katiba Institute, Participation of Ethnic Minorities and Marginalized Communities in Political and other Governance Processes: Realities and Approaches (Katiba Institute, 2019), p 18. The 42 and later 44 groups have been disputed as not accurately depicting the ethnic composition of Kenya, with some groups complaining that they have been lumped together with and subsumed into relatively bigger or more dominant groups – see The Final Report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission of Kenya (TJRC 2013) p 224 available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/TJRC-Final-Report-VolumeIIC.compressed.pdf accessed 4 January 2020. 2 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/7 - © 2020 Author(s) 1