Justice Marete Njagi has been put to task over claims of being high handed with court staff.
An incident where he arrested and punished a court staff for making noise along the court corridors when he was hearing matters.
In his defence the judge said the issue of noise making was recurrent for six months and the officers tried to handle it using other mechanisms but nothing changed.
“There was noise along the corridors and I was not able to continue so I sent a clerk to bring the person making noise and he was finally charged with contempt,” he said during his interview for the post of Chief Justice on Thursday.
"...I stopped the court, deffered proceedings and dealt with the matter, got the person arrested and brought to court and I said put him in and we resumed court."
He added: “If you read the ruling clearly you would appreciate this is not one day matter but one that has gone on for six months. The chief magistrates had taken steps to fight this menace and it would not go away. So for a long time we had this issue and it was not going to go away. We cannot sustain this.”
The judge was also compelled to explain why he used a judgment in his own case against TSC as authority in a different case which involved Maasai Mara university.
While quoting the TSC judgment he had referred to the judge who made the decision as a good friend of his and a brother.
Justice Marete said he is a student of literature and issues of perception would not arise on his use of language.
“It’s a question of expression throughout our jurisprudence. I haven’t found anyone who had good determination on retirement. It was beautiful and nice. I am a student of literature and I believe in expression. It could be an issue if you are a simpleton,” he said.
On his leadership skills, he says his track record speaks for himself.
He says the commission should go to Chuka at his farm and see how he takes care of his two cows or his coffee farm. That goes to show that he is capable
