Maraga must shun appeasement, defend independence of Judiciary

Chief Justice David Maraga

In response to the extraordinary judgment in which the Supreme Court annulled results of the presidential elections held in August last year, the political establishment staged a show of unprecedented rage, with President Uhuru Kenyatta famously promising that “we will revisit” the matter at an appropriate time. The drastic cuts on the Judiciary’s budget for the year 2017/18, which has now been reduced nearly by half, is now seen as a fulfillment of the president’s promise about revisiting the Judiciary.

Part of the political wrath that Jubilee staged at the time was an inquisition against the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Esther Nyaiyaki, against whom a multiplicity of public institutions commenced an investigation that promoted a tendentious view of the multiple controversies that the Supreme Court judgment brought out. It soon became clear that going after Ms Nyaiyaki had nothing to do with her as a person, and was always a way of weakening targeted judges, with a view to going after them.