{UAH} Ocen, WBK//Pioneer Kenyan judge, Joyce Khaminwa dies

Folks;

Joyce and John Khaminwa were one of a handful of power couples in Kenya.

While John is best remembered for defending anti-establishment (Second Liberation) political activities that led to his own detention, Joyce reigned from the Bench, where she rapidly grew in statute with landmark rulings that shocked the powers-that-be.

A Kikuyu by ancestry married to a Luhya, Joyce was in the same elite class of pioneer female lawyers and professionals that include (d) Judges Effie Owuor and Joice Aluoch, the late Veronica Nyamodi, educators, Grace Ogot, Jane Kiano, and the late Wambui Otieno.

Pojim

Retired justice Joyce Khaminwa passes on

By Willis Oketch Updated Friday, December 5th 2014 at 00:00 GMT +3

                     

Kenya: The wife of veteran lawyer John Khaminwa, retired judge Joyce, has passed on.

She died at Nairobi Hospital after a long illness, according to family members.

 

Her son Arthur, who lives Mombasa, said his mother died on Monday morning, adding that burial arrangements were being done by family members at their Karen home in Nairobi.

"We are waiting for my two sisters to come from overseas so that we can give her a warm send-off," said Arthur yesterday.

Apart from Arthur, the retired judge has another son, Albert, and two daughters - Anne, who is in the US and Anjela, who lives in Austria with her husband.

"They are expected any time so that we can lay to rest the body of our beloved mother on August 13 at Karen," said Arthur.

Yesterday, lawyer Khaminwa told The Standard: "My wife has been sick for some time but had improved over the last weekend but on Monday doctors called me in the morning (to the hospital) and on arrival I was surprised she had died."

He said they have been married for 48 years and have three grandchildren.

Joyce practised law, mostly in Mombasa where her family has retained a firm to date.

Her most memorable judgement was the order she gave to the Government to release the 1997-98 judicial report on ethnic clashes, popularly known as the Akiwumi report.