JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
The “blue code of silence” is a common phenomenon, spanning across different countries and police cultures in America, Europe, Asia and even Africa. It is the unwritten rule according to which police officers never provide incriminating information about their colleagues; to close ranks in silence and to cover up knowledge of a fellow officer’s wrongdoing with a collective blanket of self-preservation, a feeling of esprit de corps among officers who by and large depend on each other for their very risky lives as they confront the violent and hostile world of policing and crime. This background is important in our consideration of this appeal because the police in Kenya, as we shall demonstrate in this case as in others before it, has, in certain circumstances engaged in the practice of covering up for each other. For example a report by Kenya Human Rights Commission headed, ‘Kenya’s scorecard on security and justice: Broken promises and unfinished business’, July …