Kenya’s Judges Stood Up To President William Ruto

Following weeks of bitter rows and mud-slinging between President William Ruto and Kenya’s judges, two separate courts have ruled against the government, both on matters close to the president’s heart.

Firstly, a court on Friday ordered the government to stop taking payments for a new housing levy and just an hour or so later, a different court said the president could not send 1,000 police officers to Haiti, as Mr Ruto had promised the UN.

Analysts see this as a sign that Kenya’s judges remain fiercely independent despite what they see as the president’s attempts at intimidation.

Mr Ruto has recently launched a series of extraordinary attacks on the judiciary, accusing unnamed judges of corruption, while criticising those who went to court to stop government projects. He was responding to a previous series of rulings against his administration, one of which was last week overturned.

Before Friday’s rulings, a lawyer who was in the team that designed the current constitution said that Kenyans would, in light of the continued criticism of the judiciary, “be keen on seeing whether now, we are going to see decisions which are more favourable to the state”.
Bobby Mkangi said the rhetoric against the judges had been “engineered towards achieving an outcome where the judiciary will fall to the weight of the executive”.

But this does not seem to have happened.

Law Society of Kenya president Eric Theuri told the BBC after the ruling on the housing levy that while the criticism was “in a way intended to intimidate the court”, the outcome of the case was “not surprising” as the government had presented a “very weak case”.

“We expected and were hopeful that the court would be able to look at the law and make the decision on the basis of the law and not anything else,” he said.

In recent weeks, the president’s attacks on the judges triggered a backlash from Kenyans, including politicians and civil society.

Mr Mkangi said the “executive and presidency leading the onslaught” had created “pressure” against judges, adding that it remained to be seen whether this would translate to favourable rulings.

BBC