Welcome CJ Maraga, but it could be lonely at the top

Welcome to the world of controversy, deceit and backstabbing, Chief Justice David Kenani Maraga. You have just been ushered into shark-infested waters. Suspicion, mistrust and betrayal is the order of your new day. You are now the foremost administrator of the Judiciary. You are the President of the Supreme Court and the Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission. The perch is attractive, no doubt.

Yet you will want to remember the late Joseph Kamotho. As a Cabinet Minister in the Moi Government he told Kenyans that it could be very lonely at the top. That is the top that you have now ascended to, after grueling and even, sometimes, humiliating interviews. Your private space and that of others has been invaded, in the process. Your religious faith and personal integrity has been questioned.

You have come to your present address out of your own efforts and the grace of God. Yet things will not be seen that way for long. In a country deficient in manners and suffering from a shortage of common decency, you have already been reminded that you are of a certain ethnic background. All this will return. When you decide – no, when the Supreme Court decides – your country will smell out for convoluted influence. They will send to know whether it was your tribe, religion, money or some salacious-pants-down consideration on your part that has driven the decision. They will want to know which political authority has caused you to determine matters in a given way. If there is no scandal in your life, the children of darkness will invent one. They will try to make it stick. They will even attempt to drag you through your own courts – I suspect just to embarrass you.

If you have been lonely in your previous perch – as we must assume all judges are – prepare for more loneliness and aloneness. For the judge is expected to be a lonely being. He is a creature from outer space. He is not supposed to have feelings or sensibilities. He is not supposed to participate in social activities – not even within his own family. If he does, they will ask about who sat next to him. They will want to know whom he encountered in the washroom and who shook his hand at the reception.

Eh, Chief Justice! Welcome to madness. Your country is a mad circus. It excels in the festival of the wicked and corrupt. We are corrupt through and through, yet we imagine – conveniently – that one individual could restore us to order. Forget about all these nice things that powerful people are saying to you. Don’t listen to them when they say to you, “Oh, Willy Mutunga this, oh Will Mutunga that ... “ When they tell you, “Oh, corruption this, oh corruption that ...” don’t take them seriously. They are just setting you up for ridicule.

Mister CJ, let me tell you something. You know there was nothing wrong with Dr Willy Mutunga. If you have yourself entertained the notion that he did not do a good job, perish the thought. Your moment of truth is here. You will shortly be disillusioned. You have another think coming. As CJ you can only do so much. As the Judiciary you can only go so far in the war against corruption – if indeed there is war in the first place. So what should you do when the investigative and prosecutorial processes are flawed?

The Kenyan thug can buy the very prosecutor who is bringing him before the courts. He can pay the witnesses and even the investigators. How are you, as the CJ, going to ensure that the investigations are flawless? How will you ensure that the prosecutor is not bribed, or that if he is bribed he does not prosecute the matter? So what, even if you were to catch the man taking the bribe? You can’t even tell him, “No, I saw you taking a bribe, you will not appear before this court.” Or can you?

The Judiciary that you now lead sits at the dead end of dispensation of justice. It can only deliver when everybody else has done his or her bit properly. Dr Mutunga prepared the Judiciary for such a role. He fought corruption within the Judiciary. You must uphold that legacy. For the rest, you can only hope that everybody else does his bit. If they don’t, you have no way of repairing poor prosecution or getting prepaid witnesses not to present contradictory evidence.

The last word, Kenya is corrupt through and through. The political class is corrupt. The Legislature is corrupt. The religious fraternity is corrupt. And that Kenyan whom we have labeled “the ordinary citizen” is corrupt, too. If they see you looking like a poor man, they will laugh at you. They will say that you have no brains. Yet they also say that you should fight corruption. In our country, corruption is only wrong because a particular case does not involve the person running his mouth. Political appointments are made precisely to facilitate removal of funds from public coffers for corrupt gain. Those who don’t toe this line are removed. Religious leaders wait in the places of worship for their piece of the action. School teachers take theirs in the nurseries where we nurture the future corrupt generation.

Mister Chief Justice, welcome to reality. When I was a boy, I used to fantasize about offices such as you have now arrived to. As I grow older, my eyes see more clearly. I also have the courage to speak freely about these things. Do not be deceived. Forget about visits to State House.

You alone cannot end corruption in Kenya. You have not the capacity of Hercules to clear our Augean Stables of corruption. The cancer is deliberate and systemic. It has powerful political blessings. But, congratulations and here is wishing you well.