Martha Gayoye

Biography

Dr Martha Gayoye is a public law and socio-legal scholar, with a strong commitment to empirically grounded research that advances social justice. She is a lawyer by profession, and an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. Dr Gayoye undertook her postgraduate study at the University of Warwick School of Law, specifically an LLM in International Development Law and Human Rights, where she also obtained her PhD in law in 2021.

Dr Gayoye has more than seven years of legal professional experience in Kenya, having worked for the public service in Kenya for several years before joining academia. Her professional legal experience is in constitutional and public law, disability law and rights, public finance, devolution, and human rights.

Research and scholarship

Dr Gayoye has research interests in public law in concepts such as rule of law and separation of powers, and contextual public law approaches in Global South and African contexts. Dr Gayoye also is also pursuing a research interest in courts and judges generally, but more specifically judicial diversity and women judges. Dr Gayoye’s research has so far focused mostly on African contexts.

Projects

1. Courts and judges as agents of social change, Wolfson Fellow, British Academy, 2023-2026, https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/british-academy-wolfson-fellowships/the-british-academy-wolfson-fellowships-past-awards/the-british-academy-wolfson-fellowships-awards-2023/  

2. Building Connections amongst women judges in Africa - see webpage here https://iawjafrica.org/

Teaching

Dr Gayoye teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in public law, equality and human rights, social justice in Keele’s innovative Global Challenges Pathway, gender and sexuality, and socio-legal studies. She also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate (Masters) dissertations in these areas. Currently she teaches and is involved in developing the curriculum in the following courses:

• Public law (undergraduate)
• Law of Property (undergraduate)
• Critical Legal Studies (undergraduate)
• Law, Equality and Human Rights (undergraduate)
• Gender, Sexuality and Law (undergraduate)
• Lawyers and society (undergraduate)
• Law and Society (postgraduate)
• Social Justice (Global Challenges Pathway)
• Dissertations (undergraduate and postgraduate).

Supervision

Dr Gayoye is currently accepting PhD students interested in constitutional and public law, legal systems in African contexts and broader Global South contexts, courts and judges, judicial diversity and women judges. Please get in touch by email if you’re interested in supervision at Keele Law School in these areas.

Impact and public engagement

1. Dr Gayoye has shared her research with public bodies beyond academia, for instance, written evidence to the UK House of Lords on the rule of law in the UK, which can be accessed here: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/140758/pdf/
2. Dr Gayoye’s current project on building connections amongst women judges in Africa is a collaborative project with partners in the International Association of Women Judges and Africa-based legal academics. The project focuses on enhancing and evaluating the impact of women judges in Africa – more information here: https://iawjafrica.org/?page_id=12

I'm active in legal-blogging to reach a non-specialist audience – so far I have written two blogposts in The Conversation, and afroconomicslaw. I have also recorded a media conversation on women judges in Africa for a lay audience here:

Judicial leadership