A bid to stop a High Court bench selected by Chief Justice Martha Koome from hearing a petition linked to ongoing Judicial Service Commission proceedings has been dismissed, with judges calling the allegations against them “baseless” and “unsupported.”
The three judges — Charles Kariuki, Lawrence Mugambi, and Bahati Mwamuye — ruled that the claims questioning their appointment had no factual grounding and amounted to speculation rather than evidence.
The petitioner had argued that the Chief Justice should not have appointed the bench because of her indirect link to the JSC proceedings at the centre of the dispute. He claimed the task should have been assigned to the Deputy Chief Justice, and suggested the three judges were handpicked in a way that compromised their independence. Two of them, he noted, were relatively new to the High Court and had been recommended during Koome’s tenure.
But the judges rejected the argument outright.
“All High Court judges hold the same authority and expertise,” they said, adding that the petitioner had not shown any factual reason to doubt their impartiality.
They termed the accusations “sensational” and insisted that nothing before the court suggested the bench could not competently handle the matter.
The court also noted that it had no jurisdiction to revisit or reassign the case, saying doing so would violate constitutional principles governing the judiciary’s internal processes.
The judges added that the issue of constituting the bench was already concluded and therefore the court was functus officio — meaning it could no longer revisit the decision.
In reaching the ruling, the bench referred to a previous Court of Appeal decision—often cited as the Gachagua ruling—which outlines how multi-judge panels should be formed.
Respondents in the case had urged the court to dismiss the challenge, describing the claims of bias as mere conjecture. The bench agreed, noting that no evidence had been offered to show that any of the judges would favour one side over the other.
Ultimately, the court affirmed that the empanelment had been done lawfully, and the judges will proceed to hear the petition as originally assigned.
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Category: News
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