Al Yusra restaurant gets a perfect place to start a new restaurant in Westlands. In December 2013, they sign the lease with the agent for the space in Waumini House, Knight Frank for 6 years and make all the initial payments of Ksh. 2 million which includes 3 months rent. They spend another 18 million shillings renovating the place and were about to move in and open the restaurant this week, then the owner of the building says hapana, you cannot rent this place, we were meant to approve the lease you signed with the agent and since we did not do that the lease is null and void tokeni hapa, you have no right to access this space.

The owner of the building happens to be the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops. They try to offer compensation to Al Yusra but, Al Yusra could hear non of it, if they are to be compensated they want compensation for the 6 years that they would have done business at Waumini House. They claim the Waumini House owners are discriminating against them because they are Muslims and because they are Somalis.

Al Yusra is going to court.

Let us hear the arguments.

The lease is for 6 years and I think Al Yusra have some rights especially given the fact they have renovated the space. I think business leases are protected for the period of the lease because the business is involved in renovations and also builds goodwill based on location, you can't just give them notice like residential house renters.

Haha you killed it

Precisely the point!

I feel that the Catholic Church is walking into a legal and PR landmine. Violation of other peoples constitutional rights by ethnic and religious discrimination is something any institution should try to avoid.....

I hope they have a good lawyer who will advise them that this is the kind of case you do not want to take to court. Do everything to resolve the matter out of court because if this ends up in court no matter the outcome you come out the loser.