Charles Kanjama is wrong, the JSC did us proud

Charles Kanjama is wrong (By rejecting judges, JSC failed in assessing suitability, Standard on Sunday, May 15, 2011). While there may be doubts as to the manner in which the public inquisition was conducted, the decision by the JSC to forward only two names to the President is not wrong. Even if the JSC had fallen on sitting judges for the positions of CJ and DCJ, they should have forwarded only one name apiece for the two positions. The rationale behind this stratagem, namely to deny the politicians an opportunity to horse-trade on the choices, is a welcome departure from the feckless manner in which appointments to public offices have been conducted by the Kibaki-Raila coalition government.

A major reason why Raila Odinga threw a hissy fit when Kibaki nominated four persons for the positions of CJ, DPP, A-G and Controller of Budget earlier this year was the fact that he and the president had horse-traded on the nominations and the president, and his wing of the coalition, had reneged on the deal. As a result, the nation was treated to days of uncertainty with members of the coalition government making all manner of threats, throwing doubt on the stability of the government and giving pause to potential foreign and other investors. The JSC, mercifully, has denied the principals an opportunity to rain more uncertainty on the people of Kenya. The two have one choice only: accept the nominees' names or reject them. Parliament too, is limited to that choice: it can either approve the nominees or reject them. This is good for the country.

The JSC has discharged its duty. Whether it was wise for them to employ the methods they did will be debated until the next round of interviews for the judges of the Supreme Court, but no one doubts that it was a great confidence boost for the country to see their betters subjected to the same kinds of questions hapless graduates undergo when they are 'tarmacking'. Given that this is the first time that Kenya has engaged in this kind of theatre, it is only reasonable to expect that the JSC will get better at it. Mistakes were bound to be made, but they are not mistakes that will bring this nation low or the candidates who were not selected into disrepute. It may be that the 'philosophical premise that existing judges are not independent, clean or qualified enough' is wrong, but Kenyans, regardless of their stations in life, have endorsed the nominations of Dr Willy Mutunga and Advocate Nancy Baraza and it would be wrong to presume that even uneducated Kenyans do not enjoy the right to accept the choices that have been made on their behalf by one of the most representative interview panels this nation has ever seen.

The ball is now in the President's court. If he allows his 'advisors' to muddy the waters and he rejects the JSC's nominees, he will have proven once more that he holds the same views he did before the overwhelming ratification of the Constitution. Parliament, through its committees, has already demonstrated that, bar a few dispiriting political incidents, that it will perform its duty of holding public officers to account in a public forum. It is expected that the National Assembly will take its cue from the JSC and conduct a public examination of the candidates and, where necessary, members of the JSC during the confirmation process. This is how it should be. All we can pray for is that these institutions will get better with practice and the quality of public vetting will improve. Only then can we claim we have turned the page on a past that has brought shame and disrepute to the people of Kenya.