Deal with corrupt entities as culprits of judicial graft
By Hansen Owilla, January 8, 2024Wole Soyinka was one of the most authoritative anti-negritude voices.
He summed his thoughts about the Aimé Césaire and Lepold Sedar Senghor led Negritude movement thus: a tiger does not proclaim its tigritude, it pounces. Today, this seminal phrase makes an urgent sense to Kenyans as we begin the year.
You see, one full calendar year of Kenya Kwanza administration has come with a mix bag of fortunes for many. We have had both stories of success and disappointments, lamentations, and perennial peak back into the past. We need to pounce and get off the hypnosis of supporting political formations even when all they do is blame opposing political formations and portraying the other as the worst.
Granted we have witnessed landmark changes in the health sector with the coming to force of the Social Health Insurance Fund, changes in pension schemes, a new tax regime and the landmark housing levy.
Well, it is not like these changes have gone without contestations. Recently, Kenyans from the construction industry were out demonstrating against forces out to frustrate the government’s housing plan. On the other hand, different civil society organisations are in court against the housing levy. Despite the stay orders, these civil society organisations are upbeat given the High Court’s declaration of the levy as unconstitutional given that it is discriminatory pursuant to article 47 of the Constitution.
As expected, the court ruling has elicited dialects that have put the Judiciary on the spotlight. The President has strongly pronounced himself on the Judiciary. The Law Society, Chief Justice and all and sundry have come out strongly to defend the Judiciary.
It is not lost on Kenyans that just recently, former President Uhuru Kenyatta declined to appoint judges who were later appointed by President William Ruto as his first order of business upon assumption of office. Well, any sitting president gets top drawer intelligence about the nation, and it is safe to argue that both Uhuru then and President William Ruto today have more information than all Kenyans combined. Therefore, when they pronounce themselves on allegations of corruption in our democracy’s last of defence, we’ve got to stand up and pay attention.
But then in our quest to interrogate what is happening in the arm of government that interprets the laws and guarantees constitutionalism and fidelity to the rule of law, we must acknowledge that it is not a rotten Judiciary but a Judiciary with a few rotten fruits.
There are judicial officers, men and women both on the Bench and the bar who are distinguished judicial officers of integrity. It is thus important to run away from generalisations that might land us in more trouble.
Most importantly, as we stray our guns on the Judiciary, we must address all the parties involved in corrupting our justice system. For every corruptible judicial officer there is a corrupting entity, probably an entity that is perennially on the wrong side of the criminal justice system because of criminal activities, often economic crimes.
It is not the time to blame, point accusing fingers and blame the others without offering viable solutions. This is the time to pounce. We cannot live in a country where we understand the malaise that ails our society and all we do is have the arm of the Executive and political class accuse each other, accuse the Judiciary, blame parliament and for every accused entity defensive rebuttal.
The most prudent means out of this malaise is the coming together to isolate the glaring issues that are symptomatic not just of corrupt entities, but a corruptible society and the onus is on our leadership from the four arms of the government including the media, public and private sector and find a solution.
— The writer is a PhD candidate in political communication