In Justification of Extra Judicial Killings By Police
The recent extra judicial killings of two gangsters in Eastleigh has elicited usual divided but predictable response. I stand to be counted on the side of the Policemen.
When one decides to be a terrorist, by joining al Shabaab or being a cattle rustler or a gangster, he operates outside of the law and cannot seek refuge in the law.
There are as many legal interpretations of the law and legal philosophies as there are lawyers. Prof. Githu Muigai was my Professor of Jurisprudence, and Prof. JB Ojwang, taught me Constitutional law. Both taught me the open borders of expanding legal thought. To be a lawyer and to support extra judicial Killings is not oxymoronic.
Justified and targeted killings of terrorists is underpinned in sound law. The doctrine of necessitas facit licitum quod alias non est licitum basically indicates the necessity of making lawful that otherwise would have been lawful. It is why we have pre-emotive strikes. It is why we we have just wars (jus ad bellum). Israel, a great democracy is a practitioner of pre-emptive and targeted killings.
Terrorists of all shades thrive in sowing fear and terror and leveraging the media. Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest President said that we have the indispensable duty to defend our way of life at all costs. Prof. John Alan Cohan, a Distinguished Professor of Law at the prestigious University of Southern California has written scholarly articles justifying the doctrine of necessity.
Therefore, am in total agreement when our boys in blue ( and red t-shirts and jeans), kill gangsters and terrorists even in broad daylight. Terrorists, gangsters and cattle rustlers don’t carry business cards giving us their fixed abodes. When the Police and Special Forces chance upon them, they must liquidate them. The law allows. The law is broad and nimble.
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