LSK protests Uhuru failure to gazette names of judges

By Isaiah Lucheli

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has protested failure by President Uhuru Kenyatta to gazette 25 judges despite the names being forwarded to his and called on him to do his constitutional duty.

The President is also yet to gazette Tom Ojienda and Aggrey Muchelule as JSC commissioners after their election by the LSK and Judges and Magistrates Association respectively. Christine Mango’s tenure has also lapsed and the President is mandated to appoint a replacement.

LSK council members led by the chairman Eric Mutua have raised concerns that the delayed gazettement had led to a backlog of cases and also hampered the operations of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and by extension undermined the rule of law.

“We call on the President to do his constitutional duty and alleviate the suffering of the public by gazetting the names and swearing in the new judges,” said Mutua.

The chairman, with council members Ambrose Weda, Geoffrey Kitiwa and LSK Secretary Apollo Mboya, said he was concerned by the President’s failure to gazette the replacement of the three JSC commissioners.

The President’s action comes barely two months after the High Court reversed his suspension of six JSC commissioners and stopped a probe against them that was to be conducted by the tribunal he had appointed.

High Court judge George Odunga had early last month ruled that the President’s action of setting up the tribunal, which was to be chaired by retired judge Aaron Ringera, was in breach of a court order he had issued on November 6 stopping the process of the commissioners’ removal.

“Respect of court orders, however disagreeable one may find them, is a cardinal tenet of the rule of law and where a person feels that a particular order is irregular, the option is not to disobey it with impunity but to apply to have it set aside,” said Odunga.

The judge added that by ignoring court orders, the leaders would be sending wrong signals not only to Kenyans from whom they derive their authority but also the whole world; that they do not believe in the rule of law.