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The supremacy battle between the Judiciary and the National Assembly escalated yesterday after National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi wrote to Chief Justice Martha Koome maintaining that MPs had authority to oversight courts.

Muturi said Parliament, through its departmental committees, has powers to summon and question anybody while seeking evidence as required by the Constitution.

In particular, Muturi told Lady Justice Koome that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is a committee of the House, has the powers to summon the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary to shed light on an issue under probe.

“As you are aware, Article 125(1) of the Constitution confers upon the National Assembly and its committees the power to summon any person to appear before it for the purpose of giving evidence or providing information.

To this end and in furtherance of the provisions of article 95 (4)(c), 226 and 229 as read with article 125(1) of the Constitution, the Public Accounts Committee is at liberty to summon the Chief Registrar, who is the accounting officer of the Judiciary, to appear before it for the purposes of giving evidence and providing information,” reads the letter.

“The committee (PAC) executes this oversight role through examination of the accounts showing the appropriations of the sum voted by the National Assembly and to meet the public expenditure including that of the Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission and of such other accounts laid before the National Assembly as the committee may think fit,’ the letter adds.

Koome’s protest

The Speaker was responding to Justice Koome’s protest last week that Parliament had no authority to oversight the Judiciary.

Yesterday, Muturi told the Chief Justice that all accounting officers including those in the Executive and Legislature were obligated to appear before PAC to answer queries emanating from the Auditor General’s reports.

This, Muturi said, is according to Article 226(2) of the Constitution on the oversight role of Parliament which provides that the accounting officer of a public entity is accountable to the National Assembly for its financial management while article 229 of the Constitution confers the National Assembly the power to receive audited reports, debate, consider and take appropriate action.

“Honourable Lady Chief Justice, in this regard, it is clear that the summons by the Public Accounts Committee for the Chief Registrar to appear before it on various dates was well founded in the Constitution,” added Muturi.

In her protest letter, Justice Koome had questioned Parliament’s mandate and that of the departmental committees to oversight the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

She accused the Legislature of harassing the Judiciary using duplicitous and frequent summons.

“In the recent past, we have had frequent and multiple summons from Parliament, overlapping and duplicating summons from committees of the same House and also between the two Houses to discuss the same issue.

This tendency by Parliament in its exercise of its oversight mandate is worrying and needs to be addressed as it not only threatens the stable relationship that has been forged for the past few years between these two organs of the State, part of it borders on harassment,” said Justice Koome.

Locking horns

This is not the first time the Judiciary is locking horns with the Legislature after Justice Koome’s predecessor, David Maraga, wrote to President Uhuru Kenyatta advising him to dissolve Parliament for failing to enact the two-thirds gender rule.

Justice Koome’s protest came after Chief Registrar Anne Amadi failed to honour an invite by PAC to appear before it on two different occasions to respond to audit queries over delays by the JSC to confirm some officers who have served in acting capacity for a number of years.