BY SAM ALFAN.
Courts have showed the country that the Judiciary can still bite despite persistent attacks directed at judges by the Executive and Members of Parliament.
In different decisions last Friday, judges showed that they cannot succumb to the attacks directed at them but that they are guided by the constitution and the law.
For several weeks now, President William Ruto and politicians allied to the Kenya Kwanza government have unleashed endless attacks against the judges and the Judiciary making allegations that unnamed judges were corrupted by rivals to sabotage his government projects.
The rulings on Friday, however, showed that the attacks have not whipped judges to submission.
The Court of Appeal was the first to rule against President Ruto when Justices Lydia Achode, John Mativo and Mwaniki Gachoka declined to suspend a judgement that found the housing levy, unconditional.
In declining to extend orders allowing the Kenya Kwanza regime to continue collecting housing levy, the Appellate judges said that public interests tilts favour of waiting for the determination of the appeal.
The ruling effectively stopped the monthly deductions towards the levy, which took effect on July 1, with passage of the Finance Act, 2023.
Separately, High Court judge Enock Chacha Mwita stopped plans by the government to deploy over 1,000 police to Haiti on a peace mission.
The government was planning to send at least 1,000 police officers to the gang-ridden nation.
In the judgement, the judge said Article 240 of the constitution, the National Security Council has no legal mandate to deploy police officers outside Kenya.
Judge Mwita further ruled that Kenya has no reciprocal agreement with Haiti and therefore cannot send members of the National Police Service to the Caribbean nation.
