Nyayo Era redux

Two events in the space of a month are worth noting: the Chief Justice, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper, declares that Kenya's is a "bandit economy" where graft assails the public service, from the lowliest public servant to the highest state officer; and a judge of the Supreme Court is accused of being at the heart of an elaborate conspiracy to defeat the ends of a justice and in which he has been the recipient of a $2 million bribe. Taken together, one must ask if the Judiciary can ever be trusted.

There are few events as harrowing as being an accused person in a court of law in Kenya, or on the losing end of a civil claim. Your fate is in the hands of the court, a magistrate or a judge. You trust that the judicial officers are impartial, that they are not influenced by your station in life but by the facts before them and the proper interpretation of the law. You trust that the proof that is adduced before the judicial officer has been honestly obtained, that witnesses have spoken the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You believe that when a judgment or a ruling is handed down from the Bench, that it has not been influenced by a briefcase full of United States dollars.

The Chief Justice declares your faith as woefully misplaced. The accusation against a judge of the Supreme Court seems to confirm the Chief Justice's declaration. Do you even appreciate the implications of this state of affairs? Justice, my friend, is for sale. For a fistful of dollars, you will either get away with murder or you will win a civil claim. Or, as it is alleged, you will secure political office.

The Chief Justice is the head of the judiciary, the president of the Supreme Court and the chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission. Even interviews in foreign newspaper have great import in Kenya. His words are not to be taken lightly. When he declares that we have a "bandit economy" he must mean it. He would not otherwise declare it. If he shows a hint of doubt about his own judiciary, we have a right to be worried. Very worried. The one institution that showed promise in ending a culture of corrupt impunity has proven impervious to the ministrations of a few good men and women.

We are not in uncharted waters. In the 1980s it was not uncommon for judicial officers to sit in the dead of night and hand down convictions to "enemies of the state" at the behest of powerful men. In the 1990s, grand schemes to swindle the national government would never be resolved in the courts of justice because briefcases of money were the determinants of truth. Our judiciary has an odious history and to pretend that simply because the Constitution declares that "judicial authority is derived from the people" is the magic wand that will change its odious culture is to be naive. What we need is a revolution. That revolution did not and shall not come at the hands of the members of the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board.

Once Kenyans allowed the reforms of their government to be hijacked by the political class, Kenyans lost the revolution and shall be consumed by it. The Chief Justice no longer has faith in the revolution. If he has lost faith, then we are truly doomed. We might as well be living in the Nyayo Era all over again.