Mutunga six face the axe

                           Ahmednasir abdullahi     PHOTO:COURTESY

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU

President Uhuru Kenyatta now has to set up a tribunal to investigate six members of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) that MPs want removed for breaching the Constitution.

This follows a majority decision by MPs to back a report of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament that targets six members of the JSC, whose chair is Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

The six are Ahmednassir Abdullahi, Samuel Kobia, Christine Mango, Mohammed Warsame, Emily Ominde and Florence Mwangangi, who are members of the JSC Finance and Administration Committee.

The lawmakers made the recom members of the JSC Finance and Administration Committee. The lawmakers made the recommendation a day after censuring Land, Housing and Urban Development. Cabinet Secretary, Mrs Charity Ngilu for equally violating the Constitution.

The legislators said the six JSC commissioners must prove they are beyond reproach.

The Constitution also gives Uhuru power to suspend the commissioners, pending the setting up of the tribunal. Once he sets up the tribunal, it will return a verdict on their suitability to hold office within 30 days.

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi set the tone for debate when he told off the Judiciary for trying to block the House from making a ruling on the fitness of the commissioners to serve in the JSC.

Separation of powers

Muturi told MPs, amid foot thumping, that in the history of the House, there had never been a time when a court of law stopped the National Assembly from carrying out its oversight role.

“The Parliamentary Service Commission has been taken to court before and that is perfectly in order. It has never happened that someone in his or her right mind will take the Parliament of the Republic of Kenya to court. This must be made absolutely clear,” said Muturi.

He added: “The National Assembly cannot pass a resolution here directing that criminal A or B should be acquitted in a court of law. We are alive to the doctrine of separation of powers. Similarly, the courts cannot and must not direct what this House does. That, I will defend to the hilt!” The Speaker said the National Assembly has to exercise oversight over all State organs.

The Chairman of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, Samuel Chepkonga said the six commissioners must face a tribunal to defend themselves.

Chepkonga was unhappy that the commissioners snubbed the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee’s summons to appear before it.

He said they must now clear their names before a tribunal and present the evidence they refused to give the House committee.

The JSC commissioners landed in trouble following a long and ugly conflict with Mrs Gladys Shollei, whom the commission eventually sacked as Chief Registrar of the Judiciary.

“This report does not hint of any malice. It has been done on utmost good faith. The committee is only carrying out its mandate. We had a job to do, and we’ve done it according to the Constitution and the Standing Orders. We invited the commissioners and they refused to appear,” added John Waiganjo, the member for Ol Jororok, who seconded the motion.

Waiganjo said the Judiciary and the JSC commissioners are held in “very high esteem” and that’s why they ought to appear before the tribunal.

The anger of MPs that at the commissioners’ rejection of the committee’s summons, sending instead lawyer Paul Muite to speak for them, was evident from the start.

Vet afresh

“If you are held in high esteem, the public has to keep a close eye on you…They can sack judges, they even sacked the Chief Registrar the other day… yet they do not want to come to this House to tell us what happens in the Judiciary,” said Waiganjo.

Agostinho Neto (Ndhiwa), Robert Pukose (Endebess), Christopher Omulele (Luanda) Peter Kaluma (Homabay Town), Alice Wahome (Kandara), Asman Kamama (Tiaty) and Johnson Sakaja (nominated) were among MPs who backed the committee’s report, and called for the commissioners to be vetted afresh by the tribunal.

“We are not witch-hunting, the facts will speak for themselves,” said Neto. Pukose said the commissioners had exhibited “contempt, not just to the parliamentary committee, but also to the National Assembly” when they snubbed a meeting with the Justice and Legal Affairs team.

Wahome added: “When an organ of JSC tells this House in so clear and certain terms that ‘you cannot summon us’, one will ask the question, who will hold them to account if it is not this House?”

Kaluma said he had difficulty in making a decision to have the commissioners vetted because one of them, Ahmednassir, was his university lecturer on Law of Contract. He also said he considers commissioner “Warsame one of the smartest minds in the Judiciary.”

He even said that his wife worked for the JSC, but added that the law has to be followed.

“It surprises me that when the JSC was given an opportunity to converse with the leaders of the nation in the forum of the National Assembly, they refused to appear. This is a commission spitting in the face of the representatives of the people,” said Kaluma.

He said that one of the commissioners even had the temerity to write to a judge regarding an ongoing case, something, which is alien in Kenya’s legal profession.

Sakaja said: “Even the President can be impeached by this House, so who has oversight over the JSC? Do they only report to God? I have nothing against individuals, but the institution must be run in the proper manner.”

Physical appearance

MPs Chris Wamalwa (Kiminini), Manson Nyamweya (South Mugirango), and Olago Aluoch (Kisumu West) opposed the report. They said the petitioner who had cited the commissioners for violation of the Constitution — Mugambi Riungu — was never summoned in person; and that the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo, had also not been asked to appear to explain a letter from the six commissioners, purporting to direct the IG not to arrest some of the judiciary staff for alleged involvement in corruption in the Judiciary.

But Speaker Muturi said there is no requirement for physical appearance of witnesses before the committee.