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Chief Justice David Maraga Warns Kenyans, Tells Them to Reject BBI Which Undermines Judiciary Independence
Retiring Chief Justice David Maraga has warned Kenyans to reject BBI proposals that threatens the independence of the Judiciary.
The CJ spoke during the State of the Judiciary briefing on Friday at the Supreme Court.
According to the Chief Justice, any changes which preach the separation of powers or threatens the independence of the judiciary should be rejected forthwith.
Maraga pointed that such a proposition would take the country back to a period before the promulgation of the 2010 constitution when the Judiciary was an appendage of the executive.
“We are going back to the period when the Judiciary was an appendage of the executive which Kenyans fought very hard to remove in passing the 2010 constitution,” he explained.
Maraga appeared to be referring to the appointment of a Judiciary ombudsman whom the BBI report had suggested, be appointed by the president.
The outgoing CJ said that although he has not achieved everything he set out to do, he will retire a happy man.
At the same time, he urged the President to make the appointments of the 40 judges forwarded to him without any further delay.
“It is on the record that the president promised to revisit, and we saw it in reduction of judiciary budget and that’s why the courts countrywide are yet to be completed,” he said.
“Irregular budget cuts disrupt judicial processes, there was a year when the ICT budget was wholly slashed or their budget not factored in, it is a miracle that we have continued to execute our mandate,”
According to the Chief Justice, the Judiciary needs a yearly budget of between Ksh.5 to Ksh.10B to effectively operate and handle the over 400,000 that Kenyans file yearly.