Now, how about village a elder for Chief Justice?

By Ted Malanda

The other day I examined the list of applicants for the position of Chief Justice and shuddered with fright. In a country where 70 per cent of job applicants for a position are usually unqualified, the list of these eminent men and women made me tremble.

When a job falls vacant and an advert is published for, say, senior accountant (holder of an MBA, knowledge of Spanish an advantage), it is not unknown for a guy who has just cleared his CPA 1 to throw his hat into the ring.

As we say here, you never know. So I kind of expected that an industrious lawyer with a small practice behind the bus park in Bungoma town would be brave enough and fire an application.

But looking at that list, and knowing that each of the applicants meets the criteria for selection, I don’t quite envy the interview panel.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that they may end up depending on looks. But unlike most jobs where being handsome and beautiful counts, what they will be looking for is a man or woman with very stern looks — the kind who makes murder suspects to plead guilty even before the court clerk rises.

Walking stick

What I am curious about, however, is why we imagine the Chief Justice must have a law degree. Between us, a good elder with 15 years’ experience in handling serious village disputes is equal to the task. What’s more, his emoluments wouldn’t be anywhere close to what we will be splashing on these lawyers. A chicken here and a goat there is all he will demand. As for the perks of office, a steady supply of snuff and just enough money to replace his walking stick is enough.

Look, these lawyers take forever to determine cases anyway. A matter as simple as a crook breaking into his neighbour’s chicken coop can take a whole year to resolve while lawyers wearing robes insult each other in smart English. Yet this is something elders can fix in ten minutes. What more evidence do they need when it is known across the ridges that the suspect’s maternal uncles were thieves and the footprints seen trailing from the chicken coop on that fateful night resemble those of his departed grandfather who, as everyone knows, was a thief?

With an elder as Chief Justice, we wouldn’t still be talking about Goldenberg. The prosecution, led ably by the village headman, would have assembled a slew of suspects. "Did you or did you not export non-existent gold?" the Chief Justice would have rasped. Upon a plea of not guilty, the suspects would have been ordered to present themselves before the court on the next market day with a he-goat in tow for an oathing ceremony.

And as sure as the sun rises from the east, the thief would prostate himself before the wise ones, plead guilty and beg for forgiveness. Anything except going around the dreaded omurembe tree seven times which would surely kill him if he were guilty as charged.