Court dismisses case against web developer Rose Njeri
By Zipporah Ngwatu, June 20, 2025A Milimani Court has, on Friday, June 20, 2025, dismissed charges lodged against web developer Rose Njeri.
According to Principal Magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo, the court found that the charges pressed against her by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) do not disclose any offence she can be charged with.
In his ruling, Magistrate Onsarigo also stated that the two charges do not meet the legal threshold to constitute a crime under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act.
“Upon perusal of the entire Section 13 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, the particular offence, the charges do not allege, as provided under Section 16.3, whether the system crashed,” Magistrate Onsarigo ruled.
Further, he stated that in the proposed charges, it is not stated whether the website stopped working or whether any financial loss was caused or injury to any person.
In addition, he said that the DPP did not state anywhere that there was interference with national security from Njeri’s website.
Magistrate Onsarigo said that the charge plainly states that the suspect sent emails to an email address created for the purpose of receiving emails.
He said that the two counts, as presently drafted, do not disclose an offence unless they are ambiguous.
“This court is persuaded that, in line with the safe provision of statute and the reasons that I have stated above, I hereby refuse to admit the two counts before this court and, therefore, I hereby proceed to discharge the subject, the suspect that is lost in the written rule, under Section 895 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” Magistrate Onsarigo ruled.
Njeri was arrested on May 30, 2025, with police citing her website’s role in a digital campaign that flagged tax proposals in the Finance Bill 2025.
She was then arraigned at the Milimani Court on June 3, 2025, and was released on a personal bond of Ksh100,000.
During her arraignment, Njeri’s legal team—led by Kibe Mungai, former Chief Justice David Maraga, Senior Counsel Kalonzo Musyoka, lawyer Eric Theuri, and Ndegwa Njiru—vehemently objected to the charges the DPP intended to press against her.
They argued that the charge sheet was not valid because it did not outline any offence constitutionally and that there was insufficient information to enable their client to take a plea in court.
“There is no sufficient information to enable our client to respond to the charges,” lawyer Theuri told the court.
Lawyer Njiru urged the court not to allow Njeri to take a plea, stating that doing so would violate her rights.
Senator Daniel Maanzo, who was among the defence team, told the court that the charge violates Article 25(2)(n) of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and prohibits its limitation.
“This charge does not disclose any offence. It is vague, unconstitutional, and should be struck out at the outset, and our client be released forthwith,” lawyer Maanzo told the court.
However, the DPP, led by prosecutor Victor Owiti, insisted that the charge they intended to press against Njeri was proper and valid, contrary to her legal team’s argument.
According to the charge sheet, Njeri was supposed to be charged with unauthorised interference with a computer system, contrary to Section 16 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act No. 5 of 2018.
Further, it states that on May 19, 2025, at 9 p.m., at an unknown place within the Republic of Kenya, she knowingly made a program hosted at https://civicemail.netlift.app/ that automatically generated and sent mass emails to Financecommitteena@parliament.go.ke, which is an official system of the Finance Committee.
It also states that the act by the web developer led to interference with the normal functioning of the systems due to the large number of emails that streamed into it.