Kenya’s Chief Justice David Maraga has said that he and other members of the legal body which selects judges are “prepared to pay the ultimate price to protect the constitution and the rule of law”.
His strongly-worded statement was made on behalf of the Judicial Service Network, and comes after continued protests against the Supreme Court’s recent decision to invalidate President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win in last month’s presidential election and re-run the vote.
Justice Maraga points to an incident yesterday in which he says a judge was “blocked by demonstrators from accessing the Kerugoya Law Courts for the hearing of her own petition”.
He adds in the same statement that:
Demonstrations have bordered on violence and are clearly intended to intimidate the judiciary and individual judges.
These attacks are denigrating, demeaning and degrading and are meant to intimidate, threaten and cow the institution and individual judges.
Such acts are not only unlawful but also savage in nature.”
The hashtag #WakoraNetwork (meaning ‘criminal network’ in Kiswahili) is trending in Kenya amid allegations by the governing Jubilee Party that two Supreme Court judges met with lawyers representing the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, during the hearing of the presidential petition which annulled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win.
The inspiration for the hashtag appears to come from remarks President Kenyatta made earlier this month, when he referred to the judges as “criminals”.
Privately-owned Standard newspaper reported today that an individual named Mr Derrick Nguma has asked the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), which is in charge of hiring judges, to investigate the two jurists over alleged misconduct.
The paper also reported that Mr Nguma included phone records in his petition to the JSC, which he believes proves his allegations.
The Supreme Court has ordered a re-run of the elections which must be held before 1 November.
The BBC’s Anthony Irungu took these photos of Jubilee supporters outside the Supreme Court a short while ago:
