Willy Munyoki Mutunga, EGH (born 16 June 1946) is a Kenyan lawyer, intellectual, reform activist, and was the Commonwealth Special Envoy to the Maldives.

[citation needed] Among these were the anti-colonial fighter Dedan Kimathi, Kenyan activist Pio Gama Pinto, and Guinea Bissau's celebrated nationalist intellectual Amílcar Cabral.

[10] Mutunga became the general secretary of USU in 1979, months after Daniel arap Moi succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as president and began tightening his grip on power.

Mutunga immediately rallied other USU officials around a campaign for the reinstatement of Prof. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o to his former job of teaching English and Literature at the University of Nairobi.

On 12 June 1982, he was charged in court of being in possession of a "seditious" leaflet bearing the headings "J. M. Solidarity Day" and "Don't Be Fooled: Reject these Nyayos".

[11]: pages: none [12] While pursuing his doctorate, Mutunga cooperated with other Kenyan exiles to launch the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) to further the struggle for socio-economic justice and a democratic constitutional order.

As the cold war ended, Mutunga, like many radical African academics, made the neoliberal turn and began reconfiguring politics around a re-engineered liberal civil society.

In 1992, the KHRC itself was relocated back to Kenya[13] and registered in March 1994,[14] starting its operations from the Chambers of Kamau Kuria and Kiraitu Murungi Advocates.

In 1992, Mutunga joined the ranks of the country's pro-democracy Young Turks,[15] which included, among others, Paul Muite, James Orengo, Kiraitu Murungi, Gitobu Imanyara, and Raila Odinga.

Supported by a Ford Foundation grant, LSK teamed with the KHRC and the Kenya chapter of the International Commission of Jurists to produce a draft of a new constitution.

Moi responded by arguing that the government could not negotiate about constitutional reform with the civil sector, including the NCEC, that consisted of people who had no elective mandate.

[citation needed] He convened the breakfast meetings of the then opposition stalwarts, Mwai Kibaki, Charity Ngilu, and Michael Wamalwa, to forge a common alliance ahead of the 2002 elections.

[Note 4] The NARC became the litmus gauge for Mutunga's political neutrality, which lasted as long as the coalition elite stayed united by the post-election euphoria.

In a 2003 interview with Raila's biographer, Babafemi Badejo, Mutunga lauded Odinga as "an aggressive and astute politician" whose role in the 1997 National Convention Executive Council rallies showed him as a "great mobilizer and organizer".

[11]: page: 102  Ahead of the divisive 2007 presidential campaign, Mutunga threw his weight behind Odinga, saying "I am convinced Kenya's transition needs Raila as the president of this country".

[citation needed] In 2004, as the intra-elite rivalry in the National Alliance of Rainbow Coalition and fissures over the constitutional negotiations turned perilous ahead of the 2005 referendum, Mutunga joined the Ford Foundation in Nairobi as a human rights programme officer.

"[26]: pages: 1, 9 When he was participating in the donor sector, Mutunga is said to have grown ideologically intolerant, tagging and parodying those of his former colleagues in civil society and the academy aligned to the Kibaki government as "traitors".

[28] Some Christian Kenyans accused the Ford Foundation of funding, while Mutunga worked for the foundation, abortion rights advocacy organisations and liberal sex education groups worldwide, including among others the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

On 13 May 2011 after a televised interview, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC)[Note 1] recommended to President Mwai Kibaki that he appoint Mutunga.

They viewed the interview process as unjust and a pre-determined sham informed by a misleading philosophy of a "reformist" chief justice from outside the current judiciary.

[33] However, Maina Kiai, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, vigorously defended Mutunga's activism, stating,[34] [A]t some point, ... "activist" has taken on a negative sense in some Kenyan circles.

Let's be clear here: The Judiciary, perhaps more than any other institution, needs men and women of principle loyal first to the constitution and to the people.Opposition by the church and various religious sections of the society made Mutunga's appointment controversial.

As "Cabral Pinto", the name of a columnist with the Daily Nation newspapers that Mutunga used as his pen-name since 2006 to avoid conflict of interest as Ford Foundation senior manager,[citation needed] his articles were well known for defending gay rights[36] and "Africanizing homosexuality" in Kenya and the region.

[citation needed] The gay movement in Kenya, however, welcomed Mutunga's nomination as a choice "that reflect the changing trends and pursuit for surgical reform within the Kenyan judiciary".

[42] However, the Eldoret North member of parliament, William Ruto, said, "We cannot have a CJ who spots studs on his ears and claims he uses them to communicate with unseen spirits".

On 16 December 2009, Mutunga filed for divorce from his second wife, Professor Beverle Michele Lax, whom he married in San Mateo, California on 20 July 2000.

[42] After the first round of the presidential election took place on 4 March 2013, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission declared Uhuru Kenyatta the president-elect of Kenya.

[8] This would be a mere two months before the August 2017, and he anticipated that the Judicial Service Commission would not have enough time to recruit a new Chief Justice who needed to be in office in case a petition challenging the presidential poll is filed in the Supreme Court.

[49] In his farewell speech to Kenyans, he expressed confidence that he was leaving behind "a Judiciary more independent and more humane; one that has defended the Constitution and exponentially expanded access to justice; one that had reduced case backlog, including some that have been in the system for over 30 years; one that has invested in massive infrastructure; one that has unflinchingly fought corruption, even as the corruption sisterhood and brotherhood have activated their solidarities in other arenas; and one that is accountable, open and responsible to the public, as well as to its employees.

His overriding mandate would be to ‘support a sustainable political dialogue process leading to a stronger climate of pluralism and inclusive elections in 2018, and to encourage the strengthening of democratic institutions and culture in Maldives’.