Former chief justice David Maraga has renewed his war with President Uhuru Kenyatta months after going into retirement.
Speaking in an interview on KTN News, Maraga said that he will always remember Uhuru as a president who has no regard for the law and as such wants parliament to impeach the Head of State.
“We risk descending into a banana republic. The only thing left is for the Parliament to impeach President Uhuru Kenyatta,” Maraga said.
The former chief justice made reference to the president’s numerous tendencies to disregard court orders as well us undermining the judiciary.
“When you have court orders disobeyed from the top, from the President, Cabinet Secretaries to PSs, criminal elements take advantage of it because they know nothing will happen,
“This impunity, and particularly disobedience of court orders, is going to grind this country if we do not take care. If the law is enforced as it should, people will fear,” said Maraga.
He threw his weight behind his predecessor, Willy Mutunga, who wrote a letter to president Uhuru asking him to appoint the 6 judges he ommitted from JSC list.
“I agree with every word in that (Willy Mutunga’s) statement, I’ve read the whole of it. When a situation get so bad, it requires that people be frank,” he said.
While explaining his reasons for rejecting the 6 judges, President Uhuru said that they had questionable characters.
It later merged that thepresident could have relied on intelligence reports on the said judges which showed they had intergrity issues.
But Maraga dismissed this saying, “the constitution has not given the intelligence the power to appoint judges, the views of the intelligence have their place,”
He also denied the claims ‘questionable intergrity claims’, saying there was foul play in the appointmet of the 34 judges of the 41 names recommended by Judicial Service Commission.
“I confirm that the names have changed. Those who were said to have integrity issues have been added to that list some have been removed. For the good of persons concerned I will not name them,” Maraga said.
In his letter to president Uhuru Kenyatta, Former CJ Willy Mutunga also accused the Head of State of failing to abide by the constitution.
For the sake of the law, Mutunga told Uhuru to appoint the 6 judges that were also recommended by the Judicial Service Commission.
The relationship between president Uhuru Kenyatta and David Maraga has been strained ever since the nullification of the 2017 General Election.
Before his retirement, Maraga had fallen out with Uhuru for taking long to appoint the 41 judges recommended by the Judicial Service Commission. This made Maraga leave office an unhappy man.
