Sunday, January 15, 2012

Were the gods unhappy with Baraza in Judiciary?



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By OTIENO OTIENO
Posted  Saturday, January 14  2012 at  16:45
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) appeared to seal Nancy Baraza’s fate in the Judiciary on Friday when it recommended that President Kibaki suspend her and appoint a tribunal to investigate her conduct.
It is not clear how much the JSC sub-committee appointed to investigate the shopping mall incident in which a security guard accused Ms Baraza of pinching her nose and pointing a gun at her was able to gather in just three days.
But its verdict was fairly predictable from the tone of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga’s first public statement on the matter.
When phrases like “nobody is above the law” and “equality before the law” are evoked in a case involving a person of the Deputy Chief Justice’s station in life and a lowly woman like Ms Rebecca Kerubo, one can always tell the direction an investigation is taking.
Not that the JSC’s work was any easy faced as it was with an angry public that had increasingly smelled blood — and the blood of of a big person at that.
Kenya has of course changed for the better, and a reformed institution like the Judiciary must be responsive to public concern. 
But whichever way I look at it, the Village Market drama still has some fate about it.
Once Ms Kerubo was back up after allegedly going down on her knees to plead for dear life, the incident just seemed to take a life of its own.
Ms Kerubo wouldn’t accept gifts in the glare of TV cameras.
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Our police conducted investigations with unusual efficiency and handed its report to the Director of Public Prosecutions office in a record time.
The men and women of the JSC then emerged in suits to twist the knife. And all this in one week. It’s like the gods were unhappy, and they wanted a sacrifice.
Of course, this is only my conspiracy theory. But if Ms Baraza choses the tribunal I may yet be vindicated.
She might point to the fact that she wasn’t the choice of the unforgiving church lobby and influential anti-reform political elite upset by her views on gay culture in a PhD thesis.
Also, it wouldn’t sound any outlandish if she were to blame her troubles on a hostile working environment populated with fairly moody colleagues anxious about public vetting.
And who knows, Ms Baraza could even see herself as a victim of peer rivalry and cannibalism — the civil society gods serving up revenge for some perceived past sin.
Seven months is a long time in the Judiciary after all.
jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com

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