Martha Karua

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Martha Wangari Karua (born 22 September 1957) is Kenya's Minister of Justice, National Cohesion & Constitutional Affairs. She is a Member of Parliament for Gichugu constituency. She is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya

She was born in Kirinyaga District, Central Province of Kenya. Martha Karua studied law at the University of Nairobi from 1977 to 1980. Between 1980 and 1981 she was enrolled at the Kenya School of Law for the statutory post graduate law course that is a prerequisite to admission to the Kenyan roll of advocates and licensing to practise law in Kenya. She then entered the public service, and worked as a Magistrate from 1981 to 1987. From 1987 to 2002 she worked in private practise as an advocate.

Karua was a member of the opposition political movements that successfully agitated for the reintroduction of multi-party democracy in Kenya in the early 1990s. Kenya was at the time under the authoritatian rule of KANU (Kenya African National Union), the only legally recognised political party in Kenya and which was lead by president Daniel arap Moi. Later she was among those who formed the political coalition NARC that won the 2003 General Election in Kenya and ended KANU's nearly four decades of leadership in Kenya's politics. She has been a leading crusader for the widening of democratic space and gender issues in Kenya. She has been involved in championing women’s rights through public interest litigation, lobbying and advocacy for laws that enhance and protect women’s rights through her work with various women’s organizations, particularly the International Federation of Women Lawyers(FIDA-Kenya) and the League of Kenya Women Voters.

She was the first woman lawyer to be popularly elected to Parliament. She is still a prominent national politician. Karua is currently the Minister of Justice, National Cohesion & Constitutional Affairs. She also previously served as Minister of Water Resources Management & Development. In 1991 she was recognized by Human Rights Watch as a human rights monitor, and in 1999 the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists awarded her the 1999 Kenya Jurist of the Year.

Karua remained Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister in the Cabinet appointed by Kibaki on January 8, 2008, following the controversial December 2007 election.^[1] In an interview with BBC's HARDtalk in January 2008, Karua said, regarding the violent crisis that had developed over the election results, that while the government had anticipated that the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of Raila Odinga might be "planning mayhem if they lost", it was surprised by "the magnitude" of it, calling the violence "ethnic cleansing". Asked to clarify, Karua said that she was stating "categorically" that the ODM planned ethnic cleansing. Odinga subsequently called Karua's accusation "outrageous".^[2] Karua headed the government's team in negotiations with the opposition regarding the political dispute that resulted from the election.^[3] The political crisis eventually led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement between Kibaki and Odinga. In the Grand Coalition Cabinet that was announced on April 13, 2008, Karua remained in her post as Minister of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs.^[4]

Martha Karua gained attention after she and a Catholic priest, Fr. Dominic Wamugunda, were carjacked and robbed on December 6, 2003. She said in Parliament that she was under no obligation to provide any explanation for why she was in Wamugunda's car or what she was doing at the time of the carjacking. Her security guards were not present when the crime occurred; Karua said that when she did not feel she needed the guards, she did not use them.^[5]