international instruments. Kenya has ratified, namely: the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (“the Maputo Protocol”), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). 249. Equality of both women and men has gained support from the Courts of law. In the High Court of Kenya decision on Civil Suit No. 7 of 2012- Lucy Kemboi v Cleti Kurgat & 5 Others, the Court pointed out that Article 27(3) and (4) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 provide for equal treatment including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres; and non discrimination against anyone on account of among other things, gender. The Court noted that a widow should not be discriminated upon by cultural practices. It also ordered that the widow be allowed to bury her deceased husband where the couple had established a home. In this case, it was the Court's view that though Keiyo customary law was applicable and that under the said customary law the clan together with the deceased brothers were responsible for the burial of the deceased, Lucy having been married to the deceased had a right derived from written law to bury the deceased. The Court was of the view that the rights of Lucy were provided for and protected by the Constitution, in that Lucy should not be discriminated upon by cultural practices, that she had an equal right as her inlaws and the clan did, to bury her husband’s remains. 250. The State party is sensitive to the fact that women in Kenya face numerous obstacles in achieving representation in governance. Cultural and societal dynamics have contributed heavily to the under representation of women in both public and private spheres. While considerable effort has been made to ensure that women are appointed to key public positions, they have not fared very well in the elective field as depicted in the table below. To give women a better chance of participating in contemporary formal politics and thus affect the quality of public policy, the Constitution in Article 81(b) espouses the principle that “not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender.” A major challenge here was that for the constitutional threshold to be realized at least 117 Members of Parliament would have to be female (or male if women made up the majority in Parliament). It is not clear under the Constitution how this rule would be implemented. The achievement of the gender equality rule in the first general elections under the Constitution was not realized. Women won a mere 13.4 % which did not attain the a “third threshold as outlined in the table below Kenyan with no woman candidate winning governor and senator positions, meaning none of Kenya’s 47 local governments is led by a woman. 251. To address the Constitutional anomaly, just before the March 2013 general elections in Kenya, the Attorney General, sought an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court on how the Constitutional threshold could be achieved. The Supreme Court held that the achievement of the provision would be progressive and decreed that a mechanism towards this be put in place by the 27th August 2015. The Attorney General has set up a Working group to work out a legal framework to the facilitate compliance with the Constitutional provisions of the two third gender rule in representation of women in elective and appointive positions. 252. The Table outlines the status of implementation of the principle of gender representation in elective and appointive positions (public) in Kenya as of January 2014: No. Position Total Men Women Governors 47 47 0 55