Executive won't appoint judges with questionable character

Attorney General Paul Kihara has said the Judicial Service Commission will not coerce the executive to appoint judges with questionable character.

Kihara defended President Uhuru Kenyatta’s refusal to appoint the 41 judges and expressed his disappointment with Chief Justice for what he claimed as demeaning the Presidency.

The AG said the executive shall not be used as a rubber stamp for any appointment by the JSC or any other institution.

The AG was speaking a day after Chief Justice David Maraga lamented over the continued disregard of court orders and the rule of law by the Executive.

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A day after the Judiciary took the executive head-on over a raft of issues among them separation of powers, the executive through the Attorney General Paul Kihara has come out to respond with an equal gusto.

Kihara accused the Chief Justice David Maraga of publicly taking a personal slant at the executive saying the move was a breach of established norms of government.

The alleged refusal by the President to appoint the 41 judges nominated by JSC which was among the bone of contention between the Judiciary and executive also getting its fair share of the AG’s response.

The AG observed that the president has been issuing Executive orders since 2013 in a manner that did not interfere with the independence of the judiciary and that the Chief Justice had never raised objections.

He noted that the Judiciary had always had a backlog of cases including corruption cases that the president had lamented about earlier in the year during the Annual Judiciary Report.

Chief Justice David Maraga on Monday took a swipe at the President accusing the head of state of failure to appoint the 41 judges recommended by the Judicial Service Commission late last year.

The attorney general cautioned the chief justice against publicly attacking the president noting that it was a way of eroding the confidence the Executive has on the Judiciary.

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