Kenya’s High Court has struck down major parts of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2025, ruling that the government cannot hand a committee the power to shut down websites without a court’s say-so.
The ruling, handed down today, dealt with a batch of petitions challenging the amended law, including one filed by Kirinyaga Woman Representative Njeri Maina.
At the center of the case was Section 6(1)(j)(a), which had given the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee, known as NC4, authority to order internet providers to block websites and apps it decided were hosting terrorism content, extremist material, cult activity, or child sexual exploitation content.
That sounds reasonable on paper, but the court’s problem wasn’t the goal. It was the process. The judge found that letting a government committee decide what counts as illegal content and pull the plug on a website without ever going to court amounted to censorship with no checks on it.
The ruling described this as prior restraint, meaning the government could block speech before anyone proved it was actually harmful, which the court called the most severe form of censorship a state can impose.
Making things worse for the state’s case, Parliament had already created a separate process for blocking content that did involve court oversight. So the committee’s shortcut power under Section 6(1)(j)(a) wasn’t just risky, it was redundant and inconsistent with the law’s own structure.
The court said the government failed to show this power was necessary or that there was no less restrictive way to achieve the same goal, which the Constitution requires before any fundamental right can be limited.
READ: Government Loses Power to Block Social Media After Court Ruling
The court also struck down Section 27(1)(b), the part of the law that made it a crime to send a communication “likely to cause” someone to commit suicide.
Judges found this wording too vague. Criminal offenses need to be defined clearly enough that people know in advance what conduct will land them in trouble, and “likely to cause” was judged too subjective and open-ended to meet that bar.
This wasn’t the law’s first brush with the courts. Back in October 2025, a separate judge had already suspended other sections of the same amendment following a petition from musician and activist Reuben Kigame together with the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
Those sections covered cyber harassment more broadly, criminalizing online messages that were offensive, indecent, or emotionally distressing to someone, with penalties as steep as a KES 20 million fine or ten years in prison.
Critics argued the wording was so loose it could be used to punish ordinary criticism or uncomfortable speech online rather than genuine harassment.
Not every argument against the law succeeded, though. The court rejected claims that Parliament rushed the amendment through without proper public input, finding that lawmakers did give citizens a real chance to weigh in before the bill passed.
It also dismissed the argument that the Senate should have been involved, since the law doesn’t touch on county government matters.
Beyond this case, Kenya’s digital rights fights are far from over. The Supreme Court is set to hear another major challenge to the original 2018 Cybercrimes Act, this time over provisions letting state agencies intercept phone calls, emails, and other digital communications through court-issued surveillance orders.
That case was brought by the Bloggers Association of Kenya, the Law Society of Kenya, Article 19 Eastern Africa, and the Kenya Union of Journalists after the Court of Appeal partially struck down the surveillance rules while leaving others in place.
