By Isaiah Lucheli
Four sacked Court of Appeal Judges have appeared before the Judges and Magistrate Vetting Board for the review of the verdict.
On Wednesday, the board had to set aside the vetting of judges to hear submissions by the judges who were found unsuitable to continue serving as appellate judges.
Though the board had advised the judges that it was not necessary for them to appear for the review exercise in person as they could be represented by their lawyers, the judges attended the process personally accompanied by their counsel.
The first one to appear before the board at around 9.30am was Riaga Omollo followed by Samuel Bosire and Emanuel O’Kubasu during the morning session while Joseph Nyamu attended the exercise in the afternoon. Unlike the vetting exercise, which took a whole day for each of the judges, the review took an hour for each of the judges.
Civil servants
Bosire had sought the consent of the board for his review to be done in public but the board turned down the request.
The vetting board found Bosire unsuitable to continue serving as a judge due to the way he handled the Goldenberg cases. That while serving as the chairman of the Goldenberg Commission of Inquiry, Bosire failed to summon senior government officials who had been adversely mentioned by witnesses.
It said Omollo of lacked transparency and accused him of political bias and authoritarian demeanour while carrying out his activities on the Bench.
According to the vetting board chairman Sharad Rao, they had finalised applications for review by the four judges and the verdict would be announced on Friday.
The board resumed the exercise after Parliament amended the rigid time lines that had led to the halting of the vetting process. The first one to be vetted last week was appellate judge Kalpana Rawal followed by Wanjiru Karanja and Jessie Lessit.
