Judges should respect vetting board's rulings

Nairobi; Kenya: The Supreme Court's judgment declaring the decision of the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board final and that the High Court and Court of Appeal had no jurisdiction on the process of vetting of Judges is one of the most significant steps the court has taken to ensure the Judiciary accords with the spirit of the new Constitution.

For those who may not remember, in 2003 when current Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo was Chair of the Law Society of Kenya, the entire law society membership, for the first time in the life of the society, went on a boycott of the courts and carried out nationwide demonstrations against the Judiciary for a day. The reason for the boycott was that the then discredited Judiciary had filed a case in the High Court to block any provisions prejudicial to the Judiciary from being inserted in the draft constitution. It was the classic case of a monkey being the judge in the affairs of the forest. The provisions that the Judges were unhappy with included a requirement that upon the passage of the new Constitution, all judges would be vetted afresh to determine their suitability to continue holding office. This provision was informed by two realities. In Kenya's dark history, the courts had played a major role in emasculating Kenyans' clamour for democratisation and had allowed the Executive to liberally clamp down on citizen's human rights. Many Kenyans remembered how in the 90s the courts had turned a blind eye to the torture and degrading of Kenyans human rights and pro-democracy activists sometimes holding court sessions in the night where accused persons were brought to court in stretchers.