Police recruitment exercise to proceed on Monday as High Court lifts orders

The contested national police recruitment scheduled for Monday now appears set to proceed after the High Court on Friday afternoon temporarily lifted the conservatory orders that had halted the process earlier in the week.

Justice Bahati Mwamuye suspended the orders issued on November 10, 2025, effectively restoring the situation that existed before the recruitment was stopped.

With the stay in place, the police recruitment exercise previously thrown into uncertainty following a petition by activist Eliud Matindi can now go on.

The court’s directive eases immediate pressure on the agencies tasked with coordinating the nationwide intake, which had been caught in a legal tussle concerning who legally controls the recruitment mandate.

Justice Mwamuye ordered the 1st Interested Party to serve its application and the latest orders on all parties and file an affidavit of service ahead of the case management session slated for November 17, 2025.

The judge stopped the police recruitment on Monday this week following Matindi's petition which challenged the legality of the exercise being conducted by the Inspector General of Police (IG).

In his petition, Matindi argued that the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) — not the Inspector General — is constitutionally mandated to handle recruitment into the National Police Service under Article 246(3)(a) of the Constitution.

According to court documents, the NPSC had earlier, on September 5, 2025, announced plans to recruit 10,000 police constables, citing its constitutional and statutory mandate.

However, the exercise was suspended on October 2, 2025 following a separate court order in Petition No. E196 of 2025, Harun Mwau v. Inspector General of Police & Others.

The Inspector General later issued a fresh advertisement on November 4, 2025 announcing a new recruitment drive to be conducted across 422 centres countrywide on November 17, 2025.

This was after a court battle between the National Police Service (NPS) and NPSC, where the latter was found to be the rightful body to conduct the exercise. 

On October 30, 2025, the High Court declared the NPSC advertisement unconstitutional, ruling that the recruitment mandate lies with the NPS.

Matindi’s petition argued that this move was unconstitutional, arguing that the IG has no legal authority to undertake recruitment without express delegation from the NPSC as required under Section 10(2) of the National Police Service Commission Act.