(Kennedy Mong'are Okong'o was the first Nyamira Senator. He is also the National Liberal Party leader)
With the last ruling on the Wajir gubernatorial petition on Friday, the Supreme Court has had a wrap on all election petition matters before it.
This is the time for Chief Justice David Maraga to stamp his foot and fight corruption in the Judiciary.
Maraga must now rise and assist the Director of Public prosecution and his counterpart George Kinoti of the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) alongside the Attorney General Paul Kihara in having result-oriented trials.
What do I mean by result oriented trials?
Firstly, the DPP Noordin Haji must, as a matter of due diligence, prefer charges on allegations which have a semblance of a triable case which in legal parlance is called ‘prima facie ' and with the assistance of courts, try the case expeditiously and conclusively.
Secondly, unlike in the past, the DPP is now well-equipped with the best legal minds to make these things happen, not to mention putting to an end the archaic habit by law enforcers to make dramatic arrests on Friday’s.
The only handicap for my learned friend Haji is that he has never personally prosecuted a matter in any court not even for a chicken thief!
His prosecutorial ability squarely lies in his theory, the more the reason he seeks for help in prosecuting high stake cases from our mother colony, the Queen's bar from Britain.
To make matters worse, he also appoints few other legal minds to assist the foreign legal prosecution counsel who never managed to give the ODPP the glory it should have when they served as the bosses in formative years.
Needless to say is that we have young, brilliant and energetic prosecutors. All they need are the tools of the trade and you can later ask for flawless results.
In the first Senate, there were proposals for inter-agency collaboration in tandem with the Asset Recovery Agency in the fight against corruption.
What is beckoning now is for all the above stakeholders to formulate an effective case trial mechanism just as it was done with election petitions, where trial timelines governed the whole process.
Kenyans are only interested in seeing a functional judicial system with the DCI, DPP and the AG all roped in.
They need to have a tangible reason as to why the stakeholders above should have their offices gobble up colossal amounts of the taxpayers’ money.
#hivisasaoriginal