Kenya’s Chief Justice Martha Koome is no pushover. She spent her career protecting dissidents, and this year her court scuttled constitutional revisions sought by the president who nominated her. Kenya was long recognised for political involvement in the judiciary.
However, when opposition leader Raila Odinga filed a Supreme Court petition on Monday seeking to annul the outcomes of the presidential election held on August 9, her own reputation for impartiality and independence is now in jeopardy.
The head of the election commission stated that Deputy President William Ruto had won by around 233,000 votes, but four of the seven commissioners disagreed, claiming that the results had not been fully tallied.
The chairman is supported, according to Kenya’s largest civil society election observation organisation. Any apparent error in judgement by Koome or the six judges she ruled over might undermine public confidence in the legal system and jeopardise the peaceful transfer of power in the wealthiest and most stable country in East Africa.
In Kenya where fatal electoral disputes have a history, the controversy has heightened emotions.
The “tranquillity and peace of the nation” hinged on the judiciary’s ability to remain an unbiased arbitrator, the Angaza Movement, a Kenyan civic and human rights consortium, stated on Friday.
The stakes are extremely high for the justices since after Kenya’s Supreme Court invalidated the election results in 2017, the judges came under fire, the president dubbed them “crooks,” and one of their bodyguards was shot and injured.
Koome has a track record of honesty and was chosen in May 2021 by departing President Uhuru Kenyatta.
She halted significant constitutional revisions that were approved by both Odinga and Kenyatta months after her appointment and were largely perceived as an effort to marginalise Ruto. After the 2017 elections, Kenyatta split from Ruto and joined forces with Odinga.
Even detractors like Ahmednasir Abdullahi, a lawyer who routinely questions Koome’s independence and favours Ruto, praised Koome’s decision.
“On the whole, good judgement by the Supreme Court,” he tweeted, praising Koome and a second judge for being “outstanding in their reasoning”.
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