This archive report was first published on 17 December 2019.
On Jamhuri Day, President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a directive that dealt a significant blow to the lords of impunity suffocating the Judiciary and delivery of justice. The directive, which was made on December 17, 2019, instructed the State Law Office to fast-track a law to reign in state and public officers who insist on earning a monthly public payslip and running private businesses at the same time.
According to the President, all public and state officers must decide to serve the public in private or public capacities but not both at the same time. This directive is a stinging indictment on the past and current leadership of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), Judicial Service Commission (JSC), and law schools that it is State House that is leading the way in advancing jurisprudence and not the legal profession.
The directive raises the prospects to break the umbilical cord between corruption cartels whose networks thread between the Legislature and the Judiciary. In running rings around the Judiciary, through networks of senior lawyers in the Bench and the Bar, the cartels are able to slow down, divert, distract, and eventually subvert and defeat the course of justice, and which the President seeks to change.
Article 259 of the Constitution says: “This Constitution shall be interpreted in a manner that promotes its purposes and principles...and advances the rule of law....” However, how is the rule of law advanced, expanded, and honoured when MPs, including senators, who enact the laws and enjoy supervisory powers over other institutions to uphold the public interest, also troop to court to defend private interests that conflict with the public interest?
Leading the premier club of lawyers seemingly blind to conflict of interest is Siaya Senator James Orengo, a senior counsel who sits in the Senate Legal Affairs Committee. He is among the most articulate voices in the war against grand corruption and impunity, yet without batting an eyelid, and in spite of public protestations, Mr Orengo is among the leading lawyers representing Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu in criminal proceedings against her.
