Should there be a civil claim time limit, ask Richard Scorer & Victoria Beel
True justice cannot be time-limited, but courts hearing allegations many decades later can face difficulties in assessing allegations fairly if witnesses have died, memories have faded and documents have gone missing. A claim arising from the systematic torture and abuse suffered in Kenya under the colonial administration in the 1950s & 1960s was subject to a preliminary High Court judgment on limitation on 5 October. Mr Justice McCombe granted the claimants permission to bring their cases 50 years outside the primary limitation period. The court exercised its discretion under s 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 (LA 1980), which permits the limitation period to be waived where it is equitable to do so.
It is accepted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) that the claimants were subject to serious mistreatment during their time in screening camps in Kenya during the Mau Mau insurgency. The abuses included castration, rape and violent beatings – the most vile torture imaginable. The FCO does not agree who committed those acts or that the
