Chief Justice Martha Koome has dismissed claims suggesting that she has filed an application seeking the impeachment of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Through a quick dispatch to newsrooms, Koome’s lawyer Charles Kanjama said the CJ maintained that President Kenyatta is in default by failing to appoint the six judges despite an initial High Court decision directing him to do so, but clarified that she had not advocated for his removal from office.
She issued the rejoinder following a reportage a local daily insinuating that the CJ had called for the Head of State’s ouster on grounds that he had unconstitutionally rejected the nomination of six judges who had been recommended by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for appointment in 2021.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Chief Justice Koome has not made an application seeking the president’s impeachment,” lawyer Kanjama wrote in a statement dated June 11, 2022.
“The appeal merely notes that the appropriate remedy to the Katiba Institute petition is a declaration that the cure for violation of the Constitution is impeachment of the President or any other order that secures his direct accountability to the Court.”
Katiba Institute filed the petition in 2020 seeking the court to have Koome make the six appointments in President Kenyatta’s stead.
According to Kanjama, the CJ has gone on record and reiterated on multiple occasions since the petition was filed that the president is the only State official who can sanction any appointments in the Judiciary.
“The role of appointing judges is given in the Constitution to the President and not the Chief Justice. It would create an unfortunate two-tier system in the Judiciary if some judges came into office without presidential appointment,” Kanjama noted.
“The proper remedy to Katiba Institute, which went to court, is for the existing constitutional enforcement mechanism to be applied to deal with the President’s refusal to appoint the six judges.”
After the High Court judgment made in October 2021 in the Katiba Institute petition, both the Chief Justice and the JSC filed a notice of appeal and an application to stay the judgment.
The Court of Appeal stayed the second judgment pending the filing of a substantive appeal.
“While there is an appeal pending in the Court of Appeal by the President and the AG, there has been no order of stay and the 1st High Court decision is in force. The President and AG have the right to have their appeals heard and determined on the merits,” said Kanjama.