Parliament is not at war with Judiciary, says Muturi

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi

By JACOB NG’ETICH

Kenya: National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has said Legislature is not at war with the Judiciary even as he maintained that Parliament won’t obey orders as decreed by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

Mr Muturi claimed it was the CJ who first coined the terms ‘idiotic’ and ‘unconstitutional’ court rulings and said Parliament shouldn’t be expected to obey such orders.

“The problem with the Judiciary is itself. The Chief Justice at a Press conference told the world that Parliament should respect the court rulings, however idiotic or unconstitutional they were. And we realised the problem seemed like Dr Mutunga knows his juniors are having problems with their performance,” said Muturi.

Speaker wondered

He said he had sometimes wondered how some rulings were being made in the courts but the acknowledgment by the Chief Justice showed that he understood what was going on in the courts.

Muturi has previously been accused of disparaging the courts, in what is seen as a war between the two arms of government.

The battle between the two culminated in MPs slashing Judiciary’s budgetary allocation in the supplementary budget by Sh500 million.

In a hard hitting statement after the National Assembly effected that cut, Mutunga said it was not the judges but the ordinary citizens who will suffer as courts will not be able to dispense their duties properly.

In an interview with The Standard, Muturi said the courts had previously given order to the Parliament that had tendered to infringe on its autonomy.

“The onus is for the Judiciary to ensure that their court orders are respected and this can only be possible when they are practical and able to be obeyed,” said Muturi.

The Judiciary and Parliament have in the past locked horns, with the recent case being the move by the courts to block the Senate from questioning the embattled Embu Governor Martin Wambora after his County Assembly impeached him.

Last year, Parliament defied a High Court order stopping debate on the Judicial Service Commission and passed a motion asking President Uhuru Kenyatta to have the six JSC commissioners investigated for gross misconduct.