Right the wrongs in troubled Judiciary

Everything rises and falls on leadership — is the oft quoted wisdom from the great leadership guru, John Maxwell. A lakeside version says: the fish rots from the head. The import is staggeringly profound. Whenever there is success in the family, organisation, or nation, the leader must be commended and duly crowned — irrespective of whatever factors may have contributed to that success. Some often take offence that they work so hard and yet it is the leader that receives the accolades. Well, that is the glory of leadership. On the flipside though, when there is failure, all fingers are justifiably pointed at the leader; no matter how removed he may have been from the causes of failure. That is the burden of leadership.

What this means is that a person’s privilege of lament ceases upon assuming a leadership role. Henceforth, he or she must bear the demands of leadership unflinchingly like the beast of burden. A father may lament over the terrible family he heads, a CEO about the disorganised entity he presides over, or a president about the overwhelming wickedness in his nation; people will listen, but often with little sympathy. For the sole task of leadership is to transform chaos into order. It is what distinguishes a driver from a passenger. The one is actively engaged in navigation, the other passively engrossed in critique.

It is in this light that it was greatly shocking to hear the Chief Justice take the place of a passenger, and lament — to a foreign journalist — about the rot in his own country. Most regrettable was his dirge over the Judiciary that he heads. The President of the highest court in the land mourned, “I’m riding a tiger, hoping that the monster will not devour me.” The implication is unflattering. Instead of finding ways of slaying the tiger, the CJ has been preoccupied with ensuring his own safety, before he disembarks the beast. Thus the CJ lamented, “As long as I fight the cartels and they are protected, you cannot achieve anything. You are taking these people into a corrupt investigating system, through a corrupt anti-corruption system, and a corrupt Judiciary.” Sad, but whatever else he may have intended to communicate, the CJ inadvertently conceded personal leadership defeat. Whereas the allegedly corrupt investigating system, and the purportedly corrupt anti-corruption system are understandably beyond his purview, the corrupt Judiciary is his, and his only, to transform.

As if taking cue from the CJ, Nairobi lawyer, Ahmednassir Abdullahi, equally came out guns blazing against the Judiciary. Decrying the utter rottenness of the institution, he lamented how the Kenyan people have never been rewarded with an efficient, competent and corruption free Judiciary. Instead, we have been “saddled with a Judiciary that is rotten to the core, stinking to the high heavens, byzantine and barbaric.” One wonders who was supposed to reward Kenyans with that efficient, competent and corruption free Judiciary if not the CJ. But, considering that Ahmednassir has been viewed as the de facto kingmaker in the Judiciary, and the cheerleader for the CJ, it would be wisdom to listen more to what he is not saying than to what he is.

At the vetting and subsequent nomination of the Chief Justice, Ahmednassir publicly dimmed the lights of every candidate until only that of Mutunga remained shining. Accordingly, only one name was presented to the President for due appointment. Though some challenged the wisdom and legality of this, the forces behind the nomination prevailed. One wonders, therefore, whether the current ruckus is not similarly a two-pronged strategy for the succession plans at the Judiciary. On the one hand, it could be a scheme to absolve Dr Mutunga from the failure at the Judiciary, and thus prepare him for better things in retirement. On the other, it could be a tactic to disqualify most, if not all, of the current judges, so as to once again prop up predetermined candidates from outside the system to succeed Dr Mutunga and his Deputy. This would be most unfortunate, as it would mean that our Judiciary is constantly being churned at the behest of external players.

In a day and age when our society is becoming more and more litigious, Kenyans need to be rewarded with an efficient, competent, and corruption free Judiciary. But, contrary to the conclusions of both Dr Mutunga and Ahmednassir, there still remain patriotic men and women, with proven judicial rigour and unflinching capacity to slay the tiger. The task of identifying such cannot be merely left to shenanigans. We must be the masters of our own destiny.