KENYA CROWN COUNSEL

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 15

KENYA CROWN COUNSEL

City Man On Visit Home

An old boy of St. Andrew’s College and a 1940 Rhodes Scholar, Mr J. S. Rumbold, of the Colonial Legal Service, Kenya, is at present visiting Christchurch. Mr Rumbold, who is senior Crown counsel at Nairobi, will return to Kenya in September after spending three months’ furlough in New Zealand. He spent two months at the Colonial Office, London, before coming to this country. He was at St. Andrew’s in the years 1933-36 and was a prefect in 1936. He was a member of the first XV in 1935 and 1936 and of the Ist XI in 1934, 1935 and 1936. He graduated LL.B., at Canterbury University in 1940, being awarded the Canterbury District Law Society’s gold medal that

year. In November, 1940, he was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar. He went to Oxford University where he graduated B.C.L. At Oxford he won a cricket blue. During the war he served in the R.N.Z.N.V.R. as a lieutenant and was mentioned in dispatches. When he left the service he was flag lieutenant to Admiral Sir Gerald Dickens, a grandson of Charles Dickens. Mr Rumbold was called to the bar by the Inner Temple, London, in January, 1948. He was in practice as a barrister and solicitor in Wanganui before he joined "the Colonial Legal Service. He was a city councillor in Wanganui and in 1954 was the National Party candidate for that electorate. Mr Rumbold said that the Chief Justice of Kenya, Sir Ronald Sinclair, was a New Zealander. The Supreme Court of Kenya has final jurisdiction- in both criminal and civil cases, except for a right of appeal to the East African Court of Appeal. The subordinate courts are either Magistrate’s Courts or, in predominantly Muslim areas, Muslim Courts. They are graded into first, second and third-class courts and the courts of Liwali, Cadi and Mu dir.

The Supreme Court of Kenya is their Court of Appeal. There are 141 African courts, most being in native areas. Justice is administered by native elders, chosen by the provincial commissioners and supervised by administrative officers. The courts have limited jurisdiction in both criminal and civil cases exclusively concerning natives. Appeals are heard by the African Appeal Courts and thereafter, with certain conditions, by district officers. The 1951 ordinance also established a new court, the Court of Review, which is the highest body in the African legal system and whose decisions are final