By Isaiah Lucheli
Lawyer Philip Murgor will represent the tribunal that investigated the conduct of suspended Deputy Chief Justice Baraza in an appeal she filed at the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Githu Muigai appointed Murgor in the appeal in which Baraza is seeking the quashing of the tribunal’s verdict recommending her sacking.
The Supreme Court has directed that an application by the suspended DCJ seeking leave to appeal to be heard on September 20.
The court certified Baraza's application as urgent on September 6.
In the appeal, Baraza wants the highest court on the land to declare that the tribunal’s recommendations and findings as contained in their report of August 6, 2012 and handed over to President Mwai Kibaki could not form the basis of her removal from office.
Baraza who is also the vice president of the Supreme Court formally launched her appeal at the Supreme Court on Monday and she has outlined her grounds for seeking to overturn the decision of the tribunal that she be sacked.
In her petition she seeks claims that the tribunal’s findings and recommendations were not supported by the evidence on record and therefore are unfounded and bad in law.
She claimed that Tribunal readily accepted the testimony of Rabecca Kerubo as the truth despite its contradictions, inconsistencies and discrepancies and roundly rejected her testimony without subjecting the entire evidence to thorough scrutiny, analysis and evaluation.
The other grounds of her appeal include her claim that the committee first believed the evidence of Kerubo and Anthony Makhanu Muchuma and then proceeded to discredit her evidence thus showing bias by shifting the burden of proof to the Petitioner Judge.
The DCJ added that panel completely ignored and failed to take into account the evidence with regard to the findings of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to the effect that she did not pinch the nose of Kerubo as the evidence adduced was in favour of her.
She explained that the eye witness like the Watchman guarding the nearby Diamond Trust Bank offices situated next to Belladona Pharmacy and the Taxi drivers who were in the parking area and who were known to the Village Market Nairobi management were not availed to the Tribunal to testify.
