Jail the granny.

Why are people appalled that an old woman was charged with contempt of court, was convicted and jailed to purge the contempt? This is not so far-fetched in a nation where combat over land has all sorts of casualties. This is the nation that we call Kenya, where courts are held hostage by the black letters on the white, or yellowing, pages of the law books of the State. Prosecutors have no discretion over whom they will prosecute for contempt and whom they will not. And now we are called to be sympathetic to the plight of a woman, and her aged sons, who defied an order of a competent court to give satisfaction to another old woman in the small matter of succession and land.

Why should the age of a contemnor, as the lawyers would brand her now, be considered when that age was not a barrier to the commission of the act of contempt in the first place? We make elaborate provisions to protect children, especially children of tender ages. We order the behaviour of all adults using the law. If you are above the age of eighteen years, you cannot argue that you do not know the meaning of the law when you commit an offense or a crime. 

When a court orders you to do something, and you refuse to do that thing that the court ordered for whatever reason, you are not just defying the magistrate or judge who ordered you to that thing, but you are defying the entire institution of the Judiciary and the authority of the State. There can be no mercy when you are that contemptuous of the State.

The press, if they can still be called that, want us to sympathise with the granny in jail because of her age. Little is reported of the actual contempt though. We know not why the granny and her sons refused to heed the order of the court and subdivide the land in favour of the other woman. We know not what motivated them to offend so much that she would sue in court to get satisfaction. What we know is that the granny and her sons in a fit of sheer contempt defied the court and ignored its orders and now she is in jail, her sons are in jail, and the press want us to sympathise with her.

Why should we go around praying for a rule of law label when we are willing to cut some slack for contemptuous grannies? We might as well start on the slippery slope of positive discrimination for good reasons, before it is special interests that are being protected over one thing or the other. Old people have had the benefit of experience and education, formal or informal, and they cannot be the reason why institutions of the State are treated with contempt by anyone. If grannies, whether justified or not, and their aged sons think that they are right on defying courts of law, what is to stop presidents from doing the same and claiming executive privilege, or policemen by claiming national security exemptions, or ministers by claiming national interest as the basis for their contempt? Rather one granny go to jail than a hundred run amok in the corridors of justice.