High Court declines to halt ongoing interviews for Chief Justice
The High Court has declined to issue orders stopping the current Chief Justice interviews.
In a short ruling delivered today afternoon, Justice Antony Mrima instead referred the matter to the acting Chief Justice to appoint a three-judge bench to hear and determine the issue of granting orders.
The judge cited substantial matters of law and should be heard by a bench.
He also ruled that the decision issued by the bench will be used in future cases of that nature.
In the case, Tolphin Nafula had sued the Judicial Service Commission, challenging Olive Mugenda’s position as the chair of JSC during interviews.
Nafula said DCJ Philomena Mwilu should be the person chairing the sessions and not Mugenda.
Senior Counsel Philip Murgor, one of the CJ applicants, had written a letter to the JSC seeking to have the acting Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu stopped from sitting in the interview panel.
He claimed that there might be bias and favoritism for some candidates seeking to succeed retired CJ David Maraga.
Murgor had claimed that Mwilu’s professional relationship with an advocate who is among the candidates would be a conflict of interest.
“The vice chair will chair the interview and all the commissioners will sit in the interviewing process,” said Amadi during a press briefing.
A petition by Samuel Gateri to the commission sought to have Mwilu declared the substantive chairperson of the commission, being the acting CJ as stipulated in the Judicial Service Act.
In his letter Gateri stated: “There may be a ploy by the commission to designate the interim vice chair Prof Olive Mugenda to be the chair in absence of the chief justice.”
However, Amadi noted that the interviews would be chaired by Mugenda.
“The only thing that can stop a commissioner from participating is probably a court order or a commissioner’s choice not sit on the panel,” said the registrar.
The two-week interviews in search of a new CJ and a judge of the Supreme Court kicked off today at 9am with Justice Juma Chitembwe being the first candidate to face the panellists.
