Pursuit for judicial independence appears like supremacy war

NAIROBI: Amid rising concern of acrimonious relationship between the Senate and the courts, the President reiterated to the Judiciary this week that they should respect the constitutional mandate of the other branches of government. He had also told off the Judiciary in February this year after the courts injuncted the Senate from summoning governors. The situation has deteriorated since, and the Senate Speaker has vowed to go ahead with the impeachment process of Makueni Governor after the courts barred it from doing so last week. In the past few weeks, the courts have challenged Senate’s mandate in summoning the governors on their oversight role, overturned their decision to impeach a governor, and suspended a legislation made by the Senate on county development boards, effectively crippling the work of the Senators.

But the overbearance of the courts is not limited to the Senate. It had summoned the National Assembly speaker to court over the media bill and threw the National Assembly’s suspension of JSC members into the dustbin last year. Recently, it stopped a county assembly from debating a motion, and challenged another assembly’s power to impeach a county executive. The Executive too has had a tiff too many with the Judiciary, particularly with the exparte injunctions awarded to plaintiffs in major procurement contracts.