Chief Justice Koome Recalls Representing a Young Raila Odinga During Detention
NAIROBI, Kenya – Chief Justice Martha Koome has shared poignant memories of her first professional encounter with the late Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga, revealing that she was part of his legal team during his detention without trial in the 1980s.
The Chief Justice made the revelations when she led a delegation from the Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to condole with Mama Ida Odinga and the family.
In a heartfelt tribute posted on her social media platform, CJ Koome detailed how her path first crossed with the former Prime Minister during “one of the most difficult chapters of his life.”
“I first came to know Hon. Raila during… his long detention without trial in the 1980s and early 1990s,” CJ Koome stated. “Mama Ida Odinga instructed me as part of the legal team to represent him before the Detention Review Tribunal. I was only 26 years old.”
That early encounter left a profound mark on the young lawyer, who would decades later become Kenya’s first female Chief Justice. She said it gave her a “firsthand appreciation of Hon. Raila’s remarkable courage, his unbreakable spirit, and his unyielding faith in the ideals of freedom and justice even under the most oppressive circumstances.”
The Chief Justice noted that their paths crossed again after his release, during the pro-democracy struggles of the 1990s. She recalled them working together in the push for a new constitutional order and the expansion of Kenya’s democratic space.
In those “defining years,” CJ Koome described the late Odinga as “a leader of conviction, deeply committed to constitutionalism, the rule of law, and democratic governance.”
She eulogized him as a visionary whose “vision for a freer and more just Kenya inspired a generation to believe that change, though long deferred, could be achieved through courage, resilience, and collective action.”
The condolence visit by the head of the Judiciary underscores the deep personal and historical connections Raila Odinga forged across Kenya’s political and legal landscapes, relationships that were often forged in the crucible of the nation’s struggle for multi-party democracy and constitutional reform.
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