Wednesday, June 2, 2021 – President Uhuru Kenyatta used the Madaraka Day celebrations to revisit the 2017 Supreme Court ruling that annulled his victory in a bid to castigate the entire Judiciary.
In what could worsen the already sour relationship between the Judiciary and the Executive, Uhuru reprimanded the Judiciary over the recent ruling that declared the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which he and ODM Leader Raila Odinga, were pushing, as unconstitutional, null and void.
According to him, the recent judgment overturned the people’s will, diminished their power, and stifled efforts to fix ills that have bedeviled the country.
“From nullification of a presidential election in 2017 to an attempt to stop the will of the people as expressed through BBI, the Judiciary has tested our constitutional limits,” the President said.
He noted that the Judiciary has not considered the spirit of the law, thus making decisions whose impacts are dire.
“Their decisions must consider the letter of the law, but fundamentally the spirit of the law must also guide them. And I say so because the spirit of the law is the light that will illuminate the burden of the choices they make,” he added.
Uhuru further put the Judiciary on the spot, questioning whether it took into account the consequences of the decision to quash the BBI drive.
Uhuru said the BBI was meant to bring political stability by building bridges, creating inclusive politics, and ending ethnic majoritarianism that have stagnated the country’s progress.
“If the court had subjected its decision to stop BBI to a cost-benefit analysis, in other words, if it had considered the burden of choice, then, these are the questions the Judiciary would have asked:
“If we are in a constitutional moment, is a decision against the BBI a decision in support of the status quo?” he posed.
“If BBI were to be stopped, who carries the burden of choice? On whose shoulders will ethnic majoritarianism rest?”
“And who will carry the burden of losing 30 percent of our national budget every five years due to the toxic politics that BBI seeks to resolve?” he further asked.
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