Nyando MP Jared Okello has faulted President William Ruto’s move to appoint the six judges that had been rejected by the immediate former president Uhuru Kenyatta.
The six are among 40 judges who had been nominated by the Judicial Service Commission in 2019.
Uhuru however appointed 34 of them in June last year after appointing Chief Justice Martha Koome, leaving behind the six over integrity issues.
Okello, in an interview with a local station, however said President Ruto should have looked into the reasons why Uhuru refused to appoint the judges, by checking the NIS report on them, before making his decision.
According to him, President Ruto is giving the impression that anything surrounding Uhuru is wrong by swearing in the judges to office among other hasty decisions he has made after assuming office.
“Uhuru was reluctant to give these gentlemen and a lady the jobs that they applied for, were interviewed and were recommended by JSC. The president of the Republic has access and enjoys unfettered information from various departments within the government such as the National Intelligence Service.
“Any senior position before you are given the appointment letter, there must be a report from NIS, they have to carry background information and check on a candidate. It was said then that the president was privy to a lot of information regarding the conduct of some of these judges. President Ruto should have asked for the report from the National Intelligence Service that prevented the former President from gazetting the officials as judges, before gazetting them,” the MP said.
Okello further said that the modest thing president Ruto would have done to justify his decision is to tell Kenyans the exact reasons why Uhuru refused to appoint the judges in question.
“President Ruto was not an occupant of State House at the time he announced he will swear in the six judges, we can’t say with certainty that he had access to information that made former President Kenyatta not to gazette them
“And again, he then ought to have gone public and said by the way the former president did not swear in these judges because of these ‘flimsy’ reasons. Now because he is the occupant of the statehouse, he ought to have told us exactly what negated the denial of these judges before,” the MP said
On Wednesday, President Ruto oversaw the swearing of the six judges namely,; Aggrey Muchelule, George Odunga, Joel Ngugi and Weldon Koriri, who had been nominated to the Court of Appeal by JSC, and Evans Makori and Judith Omange who have now joined the Environment and Lands Court.
Ngugi is among judges who nullified BBI.
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