Wednesday, July 28, 2021 – National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has scolded Chief Justice (CJ) Martha Koome, telling her that the Judiciary has no option but to stand the scrutiny of MPs.
This is after Koome blocked MPs from scrutinizing Judiciary budgets, saying the Judiciary was independent and need no scrutiny by another arm of government; something that set off Muturi.
In a letter addressed to Koome, Muturi chided the CJ, reminding her that the Judiciary is not exempt from the scrutiny of the Parliament and that any member of the Judiciary summoned before the National Assembly should appear before it without hesitating.
He reminded Koome that the National Assembly had the mandate to particularly scrutinize the expenditure of the Judiciary.
Muturi added that the National Assembly has the power and mandate to receive audit reports and deliberate over them, referring to the reports by the Auditor General.
Koome had expressed concern over members of the Judiciary being summoned to appear before parliamentary committees, which she felt undermined the Judiciary.
In a letter addressed to Parliament, Koome argued that the summons undermined the independence of the Judiciary, and asked that such summons be ignored.
She went on to block the Chief Registrar of Judiciary Anne Amadi from appearing before MPs to explain why the Judiciary had for the last seven years, failed to hire a finance director.
Koome also complained that MPs had summoned the Human Resource Committee of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to probe the position of the Director of Finance, saying that it was solely the responsibility of the Judicial Service Commission to resolve the matter.
She further expressed her concern with MP’s behavior, saying that some of them have ulterior motives and hidden agendas in the name of playing an oversight role over the Judiciary.
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