On Saturday, May 5, 2025, we learnt of the sad news of the passing of a dear friend, mentor, adviser and forerunner of the social justice movement in East Africa. For us at the Center for Strategic Litigation (CSL), this was the most untimely of deaths.
Pheroze Nowrojee was the ultimate Pan Africanist, global justice crusader and one of the most cheeky political operators many of us will ever come to know. His superpower must have been his rather unassuming demeanour and frame. Despite his gigantic persona as one of the foremost warriors against impunity in our region, it was easy to pass him by, only to discover later, he’s the guy you are looking for.
Pheroze’s strength was his eloquence, and with it, he made up for any lack of high pitch in his voice. My first encounter with Phil, as he was fondly called, was through his trailblazing daughter Binaifer, under whom I worked at the Open Society Foundation. Bold as ever but without disrespect towards anyone for any reason whatsoever.
I only met Pheroze after hearing so many powerful stories about all the risky troubles he had taken to help those with no voice have their voices heard. I, of course, watched him on the various occasions when he represented Raila Odinga on his election petitions and was always left humbled by his passion and commitment to truth and justice. How one could be so powerful without being so loud remains one of the hallmarks of a truly accomplished jurist, which no one was better placed to teach us than him.
I only met Pheroze many years later, when I took the risk of inviting him despite his busy schedule, to share lessons with the up-and-coming class of social justice lawyers in East Africa through our young lawyers training programme. After previous failed attempts, we were incredibly privileged to have hosted him at the MS Training Centre in Arusha for about a week, which felt like a few hours given all he had to share.
Senior Counsel Pheroze Nowrojee (right) in discussion with H.E. Hailemarian Desalegn during the elders’ retreat on Democracy in Africa, Arusha, July 2023. PHOTO | CSL
If anything, Pheroze was an incredibly generous man. Given how much time and knowledge he was always prepared to give away, it is hard to imagine he still had any of it left in him. Indeed, Phil was not known for going to bed early, which meant he always stacked up a few extra hours than the rest of us. His mind was always brimming with ideas, which I would imagine made it difficult for him to easily find sleep!
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While he held a Kenyan passport, Phil was not Kenyan! He was very much East African, and whenever we spent time together, he would go on and on about his time teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam.
He would be sure to remind me how he went out to Kampala on his own volition to defend the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) from being totally annihilated. How he showed up in Zanzibar to defend Maalim Seif Shariff Hamad, who was the leader of the opposition facing persecution by his former colleagues because they feared his widespread popular support, remains a question for the books.
Any politician working towards democratic reform in East Africa would become his friend and ally because if there is anything you would find hard to question about Pheroze, it is his commitment to genuine political and democratic reforms, not just in Kenya but throughout the region.
A teacher and more
There are many ways one could describe Pheroze, but it is in his role as a teacher where he probably really stood out. When he appeared in court, many of us listened because he was the one lawyer who turned Judges into students, and the way he would go about making his point would be so calm and composed that even when you disagreed with him, you felt the need to be humble in addressing him. Phil taught on email, once in a while through WhatsApp and better still over a drink when it was you, who had to stop him from sharing or you, before you are left wondering where the night went.
Even when he said something so utterly critical, he would do it laughing, an art he had perfected so well, even if he insulted you, you would only realise it when you are doing your meditation, maybe a few days later. His soft laugh would easily be mistaken for malleability, but if there was one thing Pheroze was consistent about, it was being consistent.
Pheroze Nowrojee delivering a lecture on remedies in constitutional law during the East Africa Emerging Public Interest Advocates Programme at the MS Training Center in Usa River, Arusha. PHOTO | CSL
Take the case of his high profile political clients like Kenya’s former Prime Minister, even when he wandered into handshakes and other shakes, Phil stood steadfastly by his side and went out of his way to defend him not because he agreed with everything he stood for but because of his deep passion for pluralism and justice.
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This deep sense of justice was an ever-present theme in Pheroze’s journey. When he spoke with the young lawyers in Arusha, he chose the case of the Rivonia Trial to explain what a miscarriage of justice looks like. Who would have thought a trial from 1964 apartheid South Africa could be used to teach remedies in constitutional law in East Africa!
It took Pheroze’s unmatched imagination to weave an incredibly compelling narrative about how the unfair prosecution of the leaders of the African National Congress laid the foundations for constitutional litigation not only in South Africa but for the rest of the continent.
How Pheroze would sit quietly while the rest of you did all the argumentation, and he did all the imagination, was truly a work of genius. How he would respond to your two line email with three book recommendations and a two page summary of the concept was nothing short of artistic and intellectual extremism. He was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge not just theoretical but much more so practical and when he referred to cases it was many a times not because he encountered them in reading but actually tried them himself.
Lawyers as shepherds
In one of the last conversations we had, he insisted on meeting the young lawyers who had volunteered themselves for the most recent election petition in Kenya, whose confidence was shaken by the vivid attacks from the bench. Pheroze spoke about the lawyers like a shepherd who had lost his young but most promising herd.
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He told me how the experience of watching those young lawyers almost come to tears inspired him to write his latest book Practicing an Honorable Profession, in which he talks about the place of dignity in legal practice. His life was indeed a book that we must all find the means to guard closely so we don’t lose any pages. I have no doubt that his spirit and legacy live on because of the many Pherozites he had nurtured through his teachings and teach-ins, whether at university, formal training programmes, the Law Society and even the social justice centres.
Senior Counsel Pheroze Nowrojee (centre) in a selfie with the author of this article (left) and Kenya’s social justice activist, Boniface Mwangi. PHOTO | CSL
Little did I know when he insisted on my attending dinner at their home on 17th March that he was bidding farewell. As had become tradition, I was one of the last to leave, along with about three other friends, as we chatted deep into the night and at around 2 am we felt embarrassed for overstaying and had to excuse ourselves.
For some reason, Phil felt the need to hand me a copy of his brief biography titled A Kenyan Journey, which he had never felt the urge to grant me for all the time I had known him. It somewhat felt strange, but we agreed he was working on a more voluminous biography, and indeed, we would be in touch shortly about the anticipated reunion of the young lawyers he had trained in Arusha.
Maybe I wouldn’t have been as embarrassed leaving that night had I known it was the last time I would ever see him. While we won’t be laughing so profusely in person, memories of Phil will be just the fuel we need to keep the struggle going.
Deus Valentine Rweyemamu is the Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic Litigation. He’s available at deus@strategiclawcentre.org and on X as @DeusValentine. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
