It’s wrong to condemn the Judiciary wholesale

The dictionary defines propaganda as ‘information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.’ Synonyms of the word include disinformation, indoctrination, counter-information and spin. Propaganda has been elevated to an art form so that many firms around the world consider it a specialty.

Disinformation is not always without deleterious effects. In fact, Cambridge Analytica, the disgraced British political consulting firm, is alleged to have been used to launch spurious allegations against opposition leader Raila Odinga. Most of these have since been rebutted except in the eyes of a section of Kenyans with a paucity of serious reflection. Cambridge Analytica may be defunct, but the style and substance of its operations appears to be replicated here in Kenya. And the Judiciary seems to be victim. Of late, it has been in the limelight for the wrong reasons. 

Sample this: A magistrate made a decision that was, in the eyes of some, unpopular and a travesty of justice. Instead of exercising the right of appeal, a nefarious group hung banners in the thoroughfares of the city condemning judges and magistrates wholesale. In another instance, a judge has been in the news, arrested for allegedly having an affair with a woman facing criminal sanction. One wonders when immorality became a criminal matter or whether a certificate of good conduct is a prerequisite for judicial officers going on a date.

But even more worrisome is the spin that seeks to label the Judiciary unethical. There is a campaign to depict judges and magistrates who have acted without integrity as representative of the entire Judiciary. Other arms of government are certainly not subjected to the same behaviour or standard.

Members of parliament (MPs) have been accused of stealing Constituency Development funds. No one has called Parliament a house of thieves. When an MP shot a disc jockey during an altercation at a popular nightspot, there was no fallacy of generalisation that declared all MPs trigger-happy miscreants. Cabinet secretaries have, in the past year, been dismissed for various acts of omission or commission. No one has called for an overhaul of the entire executive for its misdeeds.

Why is it that for all government agencies, people are held individually responsible for their acts but when it comes to the Judiciary, everyone is condemned collectively? This flies in the face of Kenya’s legal system where criminal liability is individual. It can never be institutionalised. Speaking derogatorily of “Maraga’s Judiciary” or “Wakora (crooks) network” serves to undermine the credibility of this important arm of government. And perhaps therein is the endgame; to discredit the Judiciary in the eyes of the public so that an overhaul is called for, nay, demanded by citizens as one of the constitutional reforms being contemplated.

For a while now, the executive has expressed displeasure over the Judiciary, manifested in different ways. It has declared it the weak link in the Jubilee administration’s fight against corruption. Despite numerous explanations, the executive still fails to fathom that giving bond and bail to accused persons is a constitutional right and not a gratuitous extension to criminals.

Further, it has decried the slow pace of settlement of high-profile criminal matters before courts, never mind that Judiciary subventions have been severely cut and 41 judges sorely needed across the country have not been appointed.

Fundamental freedoms

What citizens must never forget is that whereas the constitution expressly provides for human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals, the greatest threat to these is the executive. After all, it has the legal monopoly of violence which it can visit on whomever it chooses. In a conflict between State and individual, the Judiciary is the trusted independent arbiter. Without its interventions, the nation risks becoming a police state.

It is, therefore, imperative that efforts to undermine the Judiciary are exposed. Propaganda must be resisted, and the burden of truth borne by those who wish to see justice thrive. Justice is the opportunity to be heard and to ventilate. That’s why court sessions are called hearings. Even when one does not agree with a judicial decision, the fact that they have been heard is cathartic.

Because the insidious erosion of justice leads to jungle law, let the Judiciary operate in the way the constitution envisages. Let those who don’t bode it well desist from making it a matrix of political revisits!

 

Mr Khafafa is a public policy analyst