Remarks by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the June 1st Madaraka Day celebrations in Kisumu has plunged the president into trouble with the court system in Kenya.
On Wednesday, June 2nd, the remarks were brought to the attention of the Court of Appeal which warned the President to refrain from commenting on the issue. The wording of the President’s remarks suggested renewed attack on Kenya’s Judiciary.
At the Supreme Court in Nairobi, Lawyers representing all four parties congregated to deliberate on how the hearing of the appeals should proceed.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s June 1st remarks suggested that the Head of State was disappointed with the Judiciary even though the Kenyan Constitution guarantees the independence of the Judiciary.
The intervention of the court was requested by a lawyer involved in the case. In his Madaraka day remarks, Uhuru said:
“From the nullification of a presidential election in 2017 to an attempt to stop the will of the people as expressed through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), the Judiciary has tested our Constitutional limits,”
He added: “While I stand by the rule of the law and will always obey the decisions of the courts, I am also compelled by my position to heed the sovereign and the supreme voice of the People of Kenya”.
The lawyer requested the court to take a stand on the matter. However, the President of the Court of Appeal, Daniel Musinga, said that the court would re-visit the matter at an appropriate time.
The President’s remarks were widely interpreted by observers to mean that the president was intimidating the Judiciary along the lines of intimidation of the Supreme Court following the 2017 annulment of the presidential election by former Chief Justice David Maraga.
According to the president, the stoppage of BBI through the court system “risks slowing development and quest for inclusive politics” in Kenya.
The May 13th ruling which stopped BBI on its tracks was a big embarrassment to the President and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who has been on a protracted campaign to popularize BBI across the country.
The BBI is widely seen as a key document that holds the answer to the Uhuru succession issue and the dismissal of the document by the court system surprised millions of BBI supporters who had assumed that the BBI process is supported by the deep state.
A key question that remains unanswered is how the IEBC could have allowed the collection of more than 5 million signatures in support of a document whose very existence is illegal.
Most importantly, it is not well understood how the BBI document could have proceeded to be approved by 38 County Assemblies without alarm bells being raised by top lawyers who helped draft it.
If the document or the process was illegal all through, it is not also understood how the Attorney General failed to advice the president on time or how the Executive failed to coordinate with the Judiciary to unearth the illegality of the document, given that the president had supported it 100% believing that the process was legal.
As the matter moves to court, the stakes are high for the President, the former Prime Minister and opponents of BBI.
Kisumu City News
