DCJ Mwilu's battle with DPP heads to appeal court

Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji during the induction of the 77 officers of the ODPP staff on Nov 22, 2018. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

The battle between Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu and Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji on whether she will be charged before a criminal court will be fought in the Court of Appeal.

 The DPP yesterday filed his notice of appeal, which now sets ground a new front on if judiciary’s second in command should be tried before the magistrate’s court or not.

High Court judges Hellen Omondi, Mumbi Ngugi, Francis Tuiyott, William Musyoka and Chacha Mwita last week quashed the charges against Justice Mwilu citing breach of her privacy.

Yesterday, Mr Haji said that he was dissatisfied with part of their verdict.

“Take notice that the first respondent, the Director of Public Prosecution, being dissatisfied with the judgment of the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi intends to appeal to the Court of Appeal against those parts of the decision which upheld the petitioner’s contentions or otherwise allowed the petition,” the notice filed by senior assistant DPP Dorcas Oduor read in part.

In a unanimous decision, last week on Friday, judges found that the DCI boss George Kinoti had obtained orders from the magistrate’s court to investigate a Kenya Commercial Bank account operated by manufacturing equipment dealer Blue Nile East Africa.

It is these orders that DCI relied on to gather evidence against the judge.

The judges declared that probing the DCJ’s accounts and transactions with Imperial Bank was a breach of her privacy.

They, however, observed that Mwilu had not raised a violation of privacy in her case.

“We have held the manner in which DCI obtained the evidence was illegal in a manner which is detrimental to her right to privacy although it was not pleaded on by the petitioner. In our view, the conduct of the DCI in this respect was so egregious and objectively unreasonable and deliberate that to allow reliance on any evidence obtained as a result would be detrimental to the administration of justice,” the judges ruled.