Police brutality in Nanyuki town. Hapa ni likii village. Just see how they brutalized people for rejecting a quarantine facility for US Ebola patients. #Nanyuki
Ruto’s government is so desperate to impress foreigners that you can almost think they would sacrifice the whole country just to be told “good job” by mzungu.
Kufurahisha mzungu has become Ruto's full time job
What happened to “Justice be our Shield and Defender”?
A court finds that a person’s constitutional right to fair hearing was violated, yet proceeds to sanitize that violation by awarding 50 million, while allowing the very decision reached through that flawed process to stand🤔
The court has contradicted itself.
They have said the outcome of Rigathi Gachagua’s impeachment is final but he should be compensated 50 million because of lack of fair hearing
But failed to clear him to run in future as the consequence of the impeachment
The difficult legal question is where to draw the line. If the violation was serious enough to justify a KSh 50 million award, some will argue it should also have affected the impeachment's validity. Others will argue that the court was entitled to separate the personal injury caused by the rights breach from the institutional validity of the Senate's decision.
Rigathi Gachagua: The 50 million awarded to me is an insult to my fundamental rights and freedoms and a mockery of the constitution. We are not interested; money was never the issue here, justice and constitutional supremacy were. If I were interested in money, Ruto had offered me 2 billion in an effort to entice me to avoid impeachment and choose resignation, but I stood for my rights and those of over 7 million Kenyans who voted for me. No offer, no amount of money can stand between me, my rights, and the rights of the citizens of Kenya under the constitution. If I could reject 2 billion, offering me 50 million is a serious joke
Yesterday's High Court judgment on the impeachment of H.E. Rigathi Gachagua raises serious and legitimate questions that our constitutional jurisprudence must grapple with honestly. The three-judge bench found that the Senate violated the former Deputy President's right to a fair hearing under Article 50 of the Constitution specifically by declining to grant an adjournment when he was unable to attend the proceedings. The court acknowledged that violation, issued a declaratory order and awarded Ksh.50 million in constitutional damages. Yet the bench ultimately upheld the impeachment itself. I respect the court and the constitutional role it plays. But I believe this outcome calls for serious reflection on the coherence of our remedial framework.
The tension in the judgment lies in this, if the Senate's refusal to adjourn was a constitutional infirmity serious enough to warrant a finding of violation and a Ksh.50 million award, then the question that naturally follows is whether that infirmity was capable of tainting the entire removal process. The right to a fair hearing is not procedural decoration. It is a substantive constitutional guarantee, particularly in proceedings that result in the removal of a person from high public office. Courts must therefore grapple carefully with what it means to vindicate a right while simultaneously affirming the outcome that flowed from its violation. It is a difficult balance and I appreciate that the bench was navigating complicated constitutional terrain.
It is instructive to recall the reasoning of the Supreme Court in the landmark 2017 presidential election petition delivered by the then Chief Justice David Maraga. The court, in a 4-2 majority, nullified the presidential election not on the basis that the outcome was necessarily wrong but on the basis that the process through which it was arrived at did not conform to the Constitution and the law. The court found that irregularities and illegalities in the transmission of results had compromised the integrity of the election and that the constitutional standard required more than a plausible result, it required a process that was itself constitutionally compliant. That principle that a flawed process cannot produce a constitutionally valid outcome remains a pillar of our public law.
When we place that 2017 reasoning alongside yesterday's judgment, a legitimate concern emerges. Both cases involved constitutional violations in the course of a high-stakes removal or electoral process. In 2017, the violation of constitutional standards was sufficient to nullify the result entirely. Yesterday, a violation of the right to a fair hearing was found, remedied in damages but the result was preserved. These are not necessarily irreconcilable positions, courts do have discretion in fashioning remedies but the distinction must be clearly reasoned and transparently justified because the precedent being set will govern how future impeachments are conducted and how future courts respond to violations within those processes.
My concern is about the precedent this decision may establish. If a constitutional violation during impeachment proceedings can be remedied by damages without disturbing the outcome, future Parliaments and Senates may not feel the full weight of their constitutional obligations when handling removal proceedings. The court itself noted the urgent need for Parliament to enact a dedicated statutory framework under Article 150 governing the removal of a Deputy President which is a legislative gap that should never have existed this long. That recommendation must not be ignored. A constitutional democracy is built on the integrity of its processes not merely its outcomes. We must ensure that the right to a fair hearing in Kenya remains substantive and not merely symbolic.