Magistrate pulls out of child custody suit

By Boaz Kipngeno

Nakuru, Kenya: A magistrate in Nakuru has disqualified herself from proceeding with the hearing of a child custody case involving a Kenyan father and a Zimbabwean mother residing in South Africa.

Nakuru Resident Magistrate Judicaster Nthuku Tuesday pulled out of the proceedings of the cross-border child custody case after the defence counsel applied the court to do so.

Harry Gakinya, the defendant’s lawyer, made the application last week, citing the court’s bias in handling the matter. Gakinya, representing the Kenyan father while making the application claimed the court did not give him enough time to respond to matters of Constitution and make submissions.

While making the ruling Tuesday, Nthuku said Gakinya’s intention was to delay the matter or stall the case.

Nthuku said the defendant does not want the case to be determined within two months, the reason he was opposed to going for the main suit.

“I therefore feel that disqualifying myself from handling the matter will hasten justice for the minor who needs to know whether he will settle in South Africa with his mother or in Kenya with his father,” she concluded.

The Zimbabwean woman, the mother of a four-year-old son whose custody is in dispute, travelled to Kenya on April 17, alleging that the Kenyan businessman and father of the minor abducted him and left the boy under the care of his grandmother. The mother had filed a suit at the children’s court seeking full custody and orders to have the father pay for the minor’s travel expenses back to South Africa.