Chief Justice Willy Mutunga yesterday summoned an emergency Judicial Service Commission meeting to discuss the conduct of Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza at Village Market on New Year's Eve. A security guard, Rebecca Kerubo Morara, has filed a complaint with Gigiri police that Baraza threatened her with a pistol after she insisted that the Deputy Chief Justice go through a mandatory security check.
Mutunga stated that as the head of the judiciary he has a "steadfast belief in the equality of all before the law." "Indeed the constitution of Kenya envisages an open and democratic society based on humanity, equality, equity, freedom and non discrimination. Nobody or institution in Kenya is above the law. This is the creed that we strive to uphold at the Judiciary," stated the CJ.
The Chief Justice also instituted internal investigations into the incident. He stated that the police should continue to investigate the case without undue influence or interference from any quarters. Mutunga said the investigations must be “conclusive and satisfactory”. Kerubo has claimed that she has been under pressure from police and some judiciary officials to drop her complaint against Baraza.
Mutunga's terse statement followed a meeting yesterday afternoon between the CJ and the Deputy CJ. Their discussion was confidential but police sources indicated that Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere had sent a confidential letter to Mutunga outlining the information that had been gathered by the police. Senior police officers spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday at the Village Market and took away the CCTV footage of the incident that occurred around 6pm on December 31 when Baraza was going to the chemist.
According to senior police sources, the police thought that writing a letter to Mutunga would be a "diplomatic way " of handling the matter without being seen to confront the Judiciary. Iteere's letter was dispatched yesterday morning. Yesterday Kerubo and her husband were visited by an elderly woman, who was not known to them, at their Gachie home with shopping from Nakumatt supermarket shortly after 1pm. She claimed that she came in good faith seeking to mediate between Kerubo and Baraza. The woman told journalists later that she was from the same village as Kerubo but her (Kerubo's) husband said they did not know her.
According to Kerubo, she was telephoned on Wednesday evening and told that the judge and two other people would visit her at her Gachie home at 9am yesterday. "Someone who claimed to be a friend of the judge called me yesterday evening and informed me that they would be coming to my house to apologise over the incident and ask forgiveness. The caller said that the judge wanted to speak to me over the incident," Kerubo said.
The person telephoned the family several times yesterday morning saying they were with the judge and were coming to Gachie. At about 1:25 pm a dark Mercedes Benz with a driver and an unidentified woman and two Standard Group journalists arrived before speeding off when they noticed journalists waiting nearby. The Mercedes belongs to a public relations consultant.
Minutes later, the same woman used a blue taxi with tinted windows to drive to Kerubo's house and deliver the shopping. The unidentified woman, who claimed she can speak eight languages, pleaded with the couple to forgive the judge. "She claimed she was an emissary sent to mediate between me and the judge. We don't know her. She claims she was sent. The caller whom we later found out is a journalist kept telling us he is with the judge and are on their way," Kerubo's husband Omwecha Morara said.
The visitor stayed in the house for about 30 minutes talking to the couple in their vernacular. She borrowed a pair of green sandals because she claimed her feet were swollen and walked back to the taxi parked outside the house before being driven out of the compound. The mysterious woman later sent a young girl for her shoes and remained in the taxi by the roadside, a short distance from Kerubo's house.
Baraza remained in her office at the Supreme Court for the whole of yesterday. Yesterday, civil society groups in Eldoret strongly condemned the Village Market incident. “We expected her to know more about the essence of upholding the rule of law. Unfortunately she is the same person who has violated it,” said Selline Korir of Rural Women Peace.
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