What ails the Jubilation?

The Chief Justice has been accused of treason by a consultant who is closely connected with an online college that recalls a more colonial era in its name. The reason is simple enough to detect: in the wake of the truly earth-shattering ruling issued by the Supreme Court -- by majority decision -- the Chief Justice, as the President of the Supreme Court and head of the Judiciary, has become the target of the misguided ire of the members of the Jubilation who were caught flat-footed on the 1st September. In invalidating the election of Uhuru Kenyatta, announced by the Chairman of the IEBC in the dead of night on the 11th August, the Supreme Court's judges attracted a level of political scrutiny that not even the much-reviled 2013 ruling could have elicited and none more than the Chief Justice has become the target of the Jubilation's intensely baleful focus.

The President and the Deputy President have not been shy of bandying words about regarding the invalidation of their election. "Civilian coup" and 'judicial coup", uttered with vehemence at many public events, set the stage for ne'er-do-wells to loudly question the "loyalties" of the Chief Justice and his colleagues and to insinuate that there was something un-Kenyan, underhanded and malign in the manner that the Supreme Court "refused to give reasons" for the invalidation of the election of the president and his running mate.

The "we respect the judgment of the supreme court but disagree with it" facade was jettisoned when the member for Nyeri Town in the National Assembly, a freshman elected representative, availed himself of the rights contained in Article 168 and filed a petitioned the Judicial Service Commission for the removal of the Chief Justice on the grounds of gross misconduct. It isn't that the Jubilation hadn't intended to do so but that it had intended to so as soon as the detailed judgment of the Supreme Court was read out, on or before the 21st September. With the cat out of the bag, all pretense was set aside: unfavourable and inflammatory stories about the Chief Justice and some of his colleagues have been planted in the press and more petitions are being filed for the removal of judges of the Supreme Court on grounds of, you guessed it, gross misconduct. These are now being buttressed by picketting crowds outside courts, including outside the Supreme Court building, over the past two days.

Distractions like the aforementioned consultant and his online screeds passing off as reasoned political commentary will continue to build the case that the 1st September ruling amounted to treason, the unlawful removal from power of the president -- though, of course, the president is still in power. Allegations of gross incompetence will continue to be made by malcontents unhappy with the manner in which the Supreme Court interpreted the laws passed by the bullies of "Tyranny of Numbers" fame. The people -- you and I -- are being primed for the removal of the Chief Justice and some of his colleagues. This unsubtle campaign of intimidation is well-choreographed but it is not so difficult to discern the outlines of the marionetteers in the background.

The Supreme Court, the moment it was given original jurisdiction in presidential petitions, became a political institution no matter how reasoned, reasonable and detailed its rulings would be. This may be one of the more asinine decisions of the Committee of Experts and we have little choice but to live with it. But we must acknowledge that the neutrality of the Supreme Court, after the events of the past three weeks, is shot to hell and we can thank the Jubilation and their jackbooted red-shirts for this. All the Jubilation had to do was let the IEBC cock it up again in October so that it could join NaSA in finding friendlier election officials for the third presidential election of the year. Instead, it is increasingly resembling the more unhinged parts of the former Soviet Bloc.