Chapter 5: LAND AND ENVIRONMENTPart 1 — LAND

Article 63. Community land

Navigate this chapter (13 articles)

• 60. Principles of land policy
• 61. Classification of land
• 62. Public land
• 63. Community land (current)
• 64. Private land
• 65. Landholding by non-citizens
• 66. Regulation of land use and property
• 67. National Land Commission
• 68. Legislation on land
• 69. Obligations in respect of the environment
• 70. Enforcement of environmental rights
• 71. Agreements relating to natural resource
• 72. Legislation relating to the environment

---

In this Chapter

Official Constitutional Text

63. (1) Community land shall vest in and be held by communities identified on the basis of ethnicity, culture or similar community of interest.

(2) Community land consists of—

(a) land lawfully registered in the name of group representatives under the provisions of any law;

(b) land lawfully transferred to a specific community by any process of law;

(c) any other land declared to be community land by an Act of Parliament; and

(d) land that is—

(i) lawfully held, managed or used by specific communities as community forests, grazing areas or shrines;

(ii) ancestral lands and lands traditionally occupied by hunter-gatherer communities; or

(iii) lawfully held as trust land by the county governments, but not including any public land held in trust by the county government under Article 62 (2).

(3) Any unregistered community land shall be held in trust by county governments on behalf of the communities for which it is held.

(4) Community land shall not be disposed of or otherwise used except in terms of legislation specifying the nature and extent of the rights of members of each community individually and collectively.

(5) Parliament shall enact legislation to give effect to this Article.

Plain English Explanation

This is a simplified summary to explain this article in clear language. It is not the legal text of the Constitution.

Article 63 of the Kenyan Constitution establishes that community land belongs directly to distinct groups linked by ethnicity, culture, or mutual interest. It defines community land to include group-registered ranches, ancestral lands, community forests, grazing zones, traditional shrines, and ancestral territories used by hunter-gatherer groups. While county governments hold any unregistered community land in trust for local people, they cannot claim it as public property. Finally, the article protects these areas by banning any sale or use of community land until Parliament passes specific laws defining the individual and collective rights of its community members. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]