NAIROBI, Kenya January 3 – The Senior Counsel Bar on Wednesday warned the recent President William Ruto’s attack on Judiciary amounted to an attempt to direct and control it.
The SCB chairperson Dr Fred Ojiambo said it was a matter of grave regret that the office of the president should sink as low as to brazenly undermine the Judiciary.
SC Ojiambo said the president’s utterances amounted to an attempt to direct and control the judiciary in the manner in which it ought to discharge its mandate.
The President had on Tuesday accused the legal arm of government of corruption and deliberate attempts to stall key government projects, and vowed to disobey court orders that presumably do not favour such projects.
Ojiambo urged Kenyans not to allow the country slide into tyranny, after the bastion of the justice is eroded and only the executive becomes the sole determinant of what is right and proper for the people.
“When the people are coerced into or discouraged from seeking justice from the judiciary, or when the judicial officers are threatened, in whatever way, from discharging their authority impartially and without fear, a state of anarchy and tyranny exists,” he warned.
Ojiambo added that the rationale of the establishment by the Constitution of Kenya of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, which are independent of each other, and having separate mandates is to assure all Kenyans of a system which will discharge impartial justice for all without fear, favour, or ill will.
According to SC Ojiambo, the judicial authority is derived from the people and in the exercise of this authority, the judiciary shall be subject only to the Constitution and the law and shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority.
“That can only be achieved where each of the pillars remain true to their jurisdictions and neither use undue threats or influence so as to diminish the effectiveness of the others,” he said.
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