Day Judiciary lost one of finest learned friends

As the country was about to celebrate its 52nd birthday since independence, one man who rose from a teacher to a Chief Justice breathed his last.

Retired Chief Justice Majid Abdul Cockar died at his Nairobi home on the morning of October 31 aged 93. And on the same day in the afternoon, his remains were interred according to his Muslim faith.

Justice Cockar remains one of Kenya's most respected judges, a man who served in the Kenyan Judiciary for 37 years, rising from Resident Magistrate in 1961 to Chief Justice in 1994.

He served as a judge for 17 years before he was appointed Chief Justice on December 24, 1994 and served until 1997 when he retired.

After 37 years of service as a public servant, he retired to a law firm he co-owned with his brother.

Justice Cockar was both an outsider and insider of the Judiciary as captured in his 2012 memoirs 'Doings, Non-doings and Misdoings of Kenyan Chief Justices'. The memoir captures the happenings in the Judiciary since 1963 through to his retirement in 1998.

"... I just did not know how to cross-examine. I knew the basics but I did not have the knack or perhaps the technique of wording the question; or perhaps the sequence of approach to be adopted to trap a lying witness giving a rehearsed story. I did not have the ready wit of an oral conversationalist or the craft of framing the type of question that could trap such a witness," Cockar states in his memoirs.

After his retirement, Cockar was among members of a tribunal headed by former House Speaker Francis ole Kaparo to investigate former Chief Justice Benard Chunga's conduct both as Chief Justice and Director of Public Prosecutions in 2003.

Cockar also chaired the commission of inquiry into the controversial sale of Grand Regency Hotel, which was the only asset charged as a collateral for a Sh3.1 billion loan as part of Sh1.5 billion that was advanced to one of the companies linked to the Goldenberg scandal.

A father of two and born in 1923, Cockar was destined to be a teacher and at best an Asian School Inspector. But as fate would have it, his father sent him to London to join his brother and study law.

The second Asian Chief Justice to be appointed in the Judiciary.