Lawyer and renowned law scholar Prof PLO Lumumba has weighed in on the happenings in the Judiciary.
He zeroed in on Friday's pronouncement by the Court of Appeal that the bench of judges appointed to hear cases challenging the impeachment of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was illegally empanelled by Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu.
"In other countries, the Deputy Chief Justice ought to have resigned immediately," Lumumba said.
Mwilu remitted files to a three-judge bench comprising Justices Eric Ogola (presiding), Antony Mrima, and Freda Mugambi to hear the consolidated petitions challenging Gachagua’s ouster.
This was because the Chief Justice was out of the country when the High Court in Kerugoya issued orders stopping Kithure Kindiki, then a DP nominee, from being sworn in.
But Justices Daniel Musinga, Mumbi Ngugi, and Francis Tuiyott on Friday ruled that assigning judges is a constitutional mandate of only the Chief Justice.
They said in the current digital era, the CJ should have electronically empanelled the bench as is required by vide Article 165(4) of the constitution.
Lumumba said that in the prevailing circumstances, the DCJ should have stepped down.
He said taking responsibility for oversights within one's jurisdiction is prudent and should be inculcated in the Kenyan culture.
Speaking on Nation FM on Monday, Lumumba said this does not mean accepting criminal liability.
"I keep on reminding people that here in this region, the second president of the Republic of Tanzania, Mzee Ali Hassan Mwinyi, resigned as a minister in charge of prisons because there had been an escape from a prison. That did not stop him from becoming the second president of the Republic of Tanzania," he said.
Lumumba said it's unprecedented that the Judiciary currently finds itself in the dock as a litigant.
"When I see judges litigating in their courts, they are defendants making applications, the Chief Justice empanelling a bench to appoint judges who will preside over a case in which she is the defendant, I believe it is without precedent in the world," he said.
