Just a few days after a Nairobi High Court declared that children with dreadlocks can continue with their education as it is their fundamental right, National Assembly majority leader Aden Duale has revisited a case that had been ruled earlier against Muslim students.
Duale now wants court to review ruling on Muslim students wearing Hijabs in school after the Rastafari case ruling.
High Court Judge Mwita Chacha last week ruled that the Constitution guarantees every person a right to religious faith and cutting the minor’s hair is contrary to her belief.
The judgment was issued in a case where a Rastafarian parent sued the Education Ministry and Olympic High School in Kibra seeking to compel them to admit his daughter to Form One without shaving her dreadlocks.
Early this year, court overturned a 2016 Court of Appeal ruling that allowed Muslim students to wear hijab in non-Muslim schools.
In the ruling made on the petition filed by the Methodist Church of Kenya, the Supreme Court said every school has a right to determine its own dress code.
Hijab is a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.
The 2016 ruling came after a church-run school banned female students from wearing the hijab, saying that it sowed discord.
But what does Justice Mwita’s Rastafari ruling mean on this ruling that was made against Muslim students? Should they also be allowed to wear hijabs in non-muslim schools now that the court says Constitution guarantees every person a right to religious faith?
