BY SAM ALFAN.
Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi has singled out the Court of Appeal as the most competent court in the country.
According to the veteran lawyer, a majority of the judges of the court are men and women of sound integrity with impeccable grounding in law and its philosophy.
And while continuing to attack the country’s apex court, the lawyer claimed that the Appellate court judges was brimming with rich and diverse talent unlike the ‘many clowns at the Supreme Court’.
The lawyer said week after week, the appellate court delivers sound, fair, and groundbreaking rulings and judgments.
“Unlike the Supreme Court and the High Court that are defined/consumed/engulfed by corruption, the majority of the judges of the Court of Appeal by the grace of Allah have miraculously escaped this enduring and incurable Kenyan malady,” the lawyer said.
The lawyer said with 29 judges, the laziness and inefficiencies of the court are just mind-boggling. It has no parallel in the Court’s history and is very difficult to understand.
He adds that 70 to 80 percent of rulings, judgments are not delivered on the promised 90 to 120 days after hearing of appeals. Indeed, the average rulings or judgment of the Court of Appeal takes 6 to 9 months.
“We have a few instances where it took 12 to 24 months to get rulings or judgments. These inefficiencies are sadly a new phenomenon,” says Ahmednasir.
He adds that It was unheard for the court not to deliver a ruling or judgment on due date in the 70s, 80s, 90s…I think it’s a national imperative and emergency that the members of the Court urgently convene a “national Kamkunji” so the country knows what is bedeviling the court and for Kenyans to chip in and help. I will attend that Kamkunji!
The second challenge the Court of Appeal faces is the existential threat posed to the court by the impending recruitment of 10 judges to the court.
“Seeing the shortlisted candidates by the JSC, it is transparently obvious that some members of the JSC are out to rig the recruitment process, Kenyan style. First, they deliberately knocked out many qualified candidates by the JSC, it is transparently obvious that some members of the JSC are out to rig the recruitment process, Kenyan style.
He alleges that JSC deliberately knocked out many qualified candidates by refusing to shortlist them and ensured that certain genre of candidates became the majority in the pool of the shortlist. Don’t get me wrong.
They are few amazing hardworking candidates from the High Court, Environment and Land Court in the shortlist who will obviously enrich the Court and richly deserve to be promoted.
“But I shake like a dry leaf (with palpable trepidation) when I look at some of the 42 High Court, Environment and Land Court judges that are shortlisted,* says Ahmednasir.
Hillary Clinton’s infamous quote of a “basket of deplorables” comes to my mind. This “basket of deplorables,” as shown in the JSC’s shortlist poses an existential threat to the Court of Appeal’s current DNA.
He says he has a reasonable suspicion that the interviews will be a public charade, a fraud on the people of Kenya, for some members of the JSC may be determined to flood the Court of Appeal with known alleged corrupt judges of the High Court, Environment and Land Court, Employment and Labour.
“Since the Court of Appeal is the end of the litigation road in 99% of litigation and the Supreme Court hears only constitutional cases and cases that “EXCITE/ENTICE” some members of the court, it priceless that the Court of Appeal gets it right 100%…as the final court.
He questions why for example were 94 percent of applicants from private practice and the academy not shortlisted.
Why were 99.9% of judges shortlisted (strangely only Justice Prof Sifuna, one of the outstanding judges of the High Court was not shortlisted. Obviously, according to the JSC he didn’t qualify to be in the “basket of deplorables”).
He pleaded with newly elected representatives to the JSC Omwanza Ombati (LSK male representative) and Justice Fatuma Sichale (Court of Appeal Judge) to urgently revisit the recruitment and the shortlist and demand that the exercise be cancelled and repeated afresh.
“Considering the disaster that are the Supreme Court and the High Court, we just can’t take any risk with the Court of Appeal,” says Ahmednasir.
