Chief Justice David Maraga and his Judiciary continues to show open bias against President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, even months after the Supreme Court made the political decision to nullify Uhuru’s landslide victory.
The president’s promise to revisit the Supreme Court’s questionable decision has not made Maraga and his seemingly biased judges to back down on their judicial activism.
After the transfer of Justice George Odunga, who always made decisions in favour of his relative Orengo, from Nairobi to Machakos, it is time President Kenyatta revisits the issue of bias at the highest court in the land.
The Jubilee Party is right to protest Maraga’s double standards. Just last week, the CJ released a statement criticising the executive for allegedly not obeying court orders, something top legal experts agree was unnecessary to do, making many Kenyans to question why he was dead silent on the many occasions when politicians in NASA defied court orders.
One of the early cases of NASA ignoring orders from the courts was when Raila Odinga mobilised his supporters to disobey a Supreme Court order requiring that elections be held on October 26, 2017. Maraga did not comment on that.
The SC refused to certify as urgent an application by Jubilee to clarify on the fate of the repeat presidential elections, yet Maraga was prompt in assembling the court judges at the last minute in a bid to hear a case seeking to postpone the elections and throw the country into a constitutional crisis.
Ahead of Raila’s illegal swearing-in ceremony, Maraga appeared to back the event by saying he could not stop any judge from administering the oath of office.
When a court in Kitui declared the people’s assemblies illegal, the chief justice said nothing when Raila and MCAs in ODM continued to disobey that order. Just before the August 8 elections, at the height of Justice Odunga favouring NASA, the judiciary refused to address the bias when it was raised.
The political decision of the SC to nullify the election results, in what analysts have described as a judicial coup, remains unresolved. Maraga was accused of being at the centre of the plot, and is yet to clear his name.
It is time for Maraga and his judicial officers are made to account for their decisions.