Martha Gayoye

Biography

I am a socio-legal scholar, with a strong commitment to empirically grounded research that advances social justice. I am an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, having trained at Moi University and subsequently the Kenya School of Law/Council of Legal Education. I have an LLM in International Development Law and Human Rights, and a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) both from the University of Warwick, School of Law.

I have more than seven years of legal professional experience in Kenya. Before commencing my PhD studies, I had worked for the Government/public service in Kenya for six years at the Commission on Revenue Allocation, lectured at Mount Kenya University School of Law, and consulted for the Disability Caucus for the Implementation of the Constitution (concerned with the rights of persons with disabilities in the Constitution). I also worked briefly with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights before my LLM studies. My professional legal experience, therefore, lies in constitutional and public law, public finance, devolution, and human rights.

My established networks are the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA), the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK), the Law and Society Association (LSA), Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) and the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S), in which I am active in the African constitutionalism cluster.

Research and scholarship

My specialism lies in courts, constitutionalism and gender – specifically, I examined the role of courts and gender equality movements in fostering gender equality through constitutions, what I term as ‘gendered constitutionalism’. My research is not only empirical (constructivist grounded theory), but also interdisciplinary and decolonial/anticolonial, as I seek to challenge/deconstruct dominant discourses on constitutionalism, rule of law, feminism and human rights in postcolonial contexts (Africa).

My PhD research was focused on the implementation of the two-thirds gender quota in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. My immediate plans are to publish my PhD thesis into a monograph. I am also currently publishing papers around my PhD research (gendered constitutionalism), courts and judges in the Global South.

I have a keen interest in women judges and judicial diversity. My first journal article is on why women judges really matter, published with Social and Legal Studies.

I am also a member of the African Feminist Judgments Project, which aims to rewrite landmark judgments from Africa from a feminist perspective, just like other existing and past Feminist Judgments Projects. This work will be published in an edited collection, to which I will contribute two chapters – a rewritten judgment and a case commentary.

Teaching

At Keele Law School, I am teaching property law modules, and leading the Gender, Sexuality and Law module. I am also in the Legal Essentials teaching team. My teaching is critical, decolonial and research-led, as I seek to demonstrate decolonial/postcolonial narratives to students through my research. This is informed by the jurisprudential paradigm that law is not neutral or objective but plays an active role in creating and perpetuating inequalities in society.