Ms.Florence Simbiri-Jaoko

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has elected Ms. Florence Simbiri-Jaoko as its new Chairperson replacing Mr. Maina Kiai.

Ms. Jaoko is the first woman to be elected as the chairperson of the commission. She is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She holds an LLB from the University of Nairobi and LLM from the University of Bristol (England). She is a graduate of the Kenya School of Law where she won the Humphrey Slade Award for best student in Professional Ethics. She is an alumnus of the Les Aspin Centre for Democracy and Governance run by the Marquette University and the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute (Nova Scotia, Canada).

Prior to joining the National Commission, Ms. Jaoko was a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and the Kenya School of Law. She has served as a Magistrate and a Principal Deputy Registrar of the High Court of Kenya and has extensive experience in judicial and human rights training. She served as a Research Assistant to the Task Force on the laws relating to auctioneers as well as the Secretary to the Committee on Community Service Orders; both initiatives culminated into statutory enactments.

She served as the Secretary to the Legal Sector Reform Coordinating Committee and has been a consultant to the World Bank and DFID on legal and judicial reforms. Ms. Jaoko is a member of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya Chapter), International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA, Kenya Chapter), and International Association of Refugee Judges.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (the National Commission) is an independent national human rights institution established by the government through an Act of Parliament, namely the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Act 2002. It's core mandate is to further the protection and promotion of human rights in Kenya. Many countries have similar bodies that audit the government on human rights. The UN encourages governments to create national human rights institutions as a strategy towards enhancing protection and promotion of Human Rights.