Judiciary Ombudsman: Remember days when Judges received phone calls?

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 26- “We must be careful about the independence of institutions. We are coming from a history where judges received phone calls after meetings were held at night. We do not want to go back there,” those were the words of Deputy President William Ruto on Monday.

The Deputy President was speaking during the launch of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) at the Bomas of Kenya.

Of the many issues the DP has with the BBI report, he said the recommendation of having a Judiciary Ombudsman nominated by the President will take away its independence.

The Office of the Ombudsman is to among other things conducting inquiries into complaints against judges, registrars, magistrates, and other judicial officers and staff of the Judiciary and improve the transparency of the court.

In the defense of the Judiciary, he said the government should instead operationalize the Judiciary Fund, for the institution to appoint more judges and also set up more courts across the country.

In the financial year 2020/21, the Judiciary was allocated Sh17.4 billion, far from the 1 percent request by Chief Justice David Maraga.

By global standards, the Judiciary is supposed to get a 1.5 percent share of the national budget.

“We must be careful about the independence of the institutions. We do not want to go there,” DP Ruto said.

The launch was attended by President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and thousands of delegates among the legislators.