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Long battle by 42 magistrates heads to employment and labour relations court

MORE than 40 former magistrates have taken another step in their fight against the Judicial Service Commission of Kenya. The magistrates have been contesting their 2003 dismissal, when they were “retired in the public interest”, a compulsory move made as part of “radical surgery” intended to deal with corruption in the judiciary at the time. They say they were wrongly dismissed and initially took their case to the high court’s constitutional division. But that court has now held that the 42 were indeed employed by the Judicial Service Commission and that their dispute should be heard by the employment and labour relations court. Charles Oyoo Kanyangi & 41 others v Judicial Service Commission of Kenya [2018] eKLR

“Tainted” judicial history remembered in new Kenya judgement

WITH a reminder of what has at times been the unsavoury past of Kenya’s judiciary, the constitutional court has declined to intervene in the dismissal of a number of magistrates who served during the pre-constitutional era. As Carmel Rickard explains, the Kenyan courts are barred by an ouster clause from considering such dismissals. In this case the court deferred to the provision, at the same time spelling out the ouster’s limits and ensuring that in the case before it those limits were not transgressed.

Billionaire advocate makes new law - on tax amnesty

WITH his flashy style, enormous wealth and handy political connections, billionaire Kenyan lawyer and businessman, Kenneth Kiplagat, regularly makes headlines. Now he is also making new law. In a major case against the country’s top financial officials he has won an order setting aside attempts to charge him interest and penalties for unpaid back tax. He has won a declaration that a particular aspect of the law on tax amnesties is unconstitutional. And, in a coup for members of the legal profession, he has also successfully argued that it is unfair for an advocate to be charged interest at 14 % for outstanding payments under the Income Tax Act (like every other taxpayer) when the maximum that an advocate may recover from a client is 9 %.

Give senior lawyer his current tax compliance certificate, high court orders

A PROMINENT senior lawyer in Kenya, Professor Tom Odhiambo Ojienda, has persuaded the high court in Nairobi to order that the country’s tax bosses give him a current tax compliance certificate, despite their earlier refusal to do so. The revenue authorities say the lawyer owes them a lot of money and so they won’t issue the certificate. But Ojienda told the judge he needed the certificate so that he could contest a seat he wants to keep – on Kenya’s Judicial Service Commission, the body that helps select the country’s judges. Though he won the interim order, the revenue authorities have noted an appeal.

“Dangerous” for politician to head Seychelles Human Rights Commission - judges
“Dangerous” for politician to head Seychelles Human Rights Commission - judges

WHEN prominent Seychellois lawyer and political figure, Alexia Amesbury, decided to contest a seat on the country’s human rights commission, she came up against an apparently immovable obstacle: the law disqualifies candidates who hold office in or are employed by political parties from sitting on the HRC. Undeterred, she contested the constitutionality of the relevant sections of the law in the constitutional court of Seychelles. There the judges found it international best practice for such commissions to be "impartial" and without overt party political presence and so Amesbury lost her challenge to all but one of the sections she targeted. The government, however, is appealing even that small victory and so the case is now headed back to court.

Tough, controversial contempt decision by Zambia’s highest court sends corruption activist to jail for six years

JUST days after a major international human rights organization released a report expressing concern about the level of official intolerance in Zambia, that country’s highest court has convicted an anti-corruption activist of contempt of court, sentencing him to an effective six years in jail. It is a controversial decision with human rights activists on both sides. The convicted man is Gregory Chifire, director of the Southern African Network Against Corruption, who questioned the outcome of an appeal in a high-profile commercial matter involving enormous financial stakes. His organization and others like Amnesty International have slammed his conviction and sentence. On the other side, the Law Association of Zambia welcomed the outcome, earlier having expressed concern about media allegations that judges, as well as some of LAZ’s own members, were corrupt in their handling of the controversial commercial case.

Kenya: Judicial Service Commission demands recusal of Supreme Court justices

IN an extraordinary move, Kenya’s judicial service commission has tried to persuade virtually all of that country’s top judges, from the chief justice down, to recuse themselves from hearing a matter involving the JSC. The commission argued that as this would disqualify the supreme court from hearing the matter, the decision of the lower court should stand as the final word.

Former top Namibian judge, cleared on all sexual misdemeanor counts by the Supreme Court, now wants to sue

AFTER one of the most lengthy and grueling trials in Namibian history, former Supreme Court judge Pio Teek has finally been acquitted on all counts of sexual misbehavior first laid against him in January 2005. This week’s Supreme Court decision clearing him completely pointed out examples of shoddy work in the case by police investigators and others, and warned that the “systemic failures” evident in the case brought the system of criminal justice into disrepute. It could result “in a travesty of justice”, said the judges. Though the criminal case has now come to an end, there is a strong likelihood that former Judge Teek will sue over the charges and the state’s handling of the matter.

Namibia’s retired Judge Pio Teek and his daughter lose defamation claim bid

FORMER Namibian supreme court judge, Pio Teek, has featured in judicial decisions more than once over the last weeks. Most significantly, the Supreme Court has confirmed the retired judge’s high court acquittal as pronounced at the end of his trial for sexual offences in relation to two young girls (see separate story below). The court strongly criticised the police investigation and other aspects of the way the state presented its case. But judgment in a second matter involving the retired judge has also been recently delivered, with the high court refusing a claim for defamation in which Judge Teek and his daughter wanted N$6-million in damages. The case is an off-shoot of a dispute over fishing rights. Judge Teek challenged a claim that he had suggested shares offered to him by an affirmative action fishing company should be registered in the name of his then under-age daughter; then, years later, he objected to an apparent reference to that issue in a separate plea filed in a different case, claiming defamation.

Judge lays down the law for psychologists to testify

FOR as long as anyone can remember psychologists from SA, called to give expert evidence in the courts of their Namibian neighbours, have been able to do so without a problem. But no longer. A new high court decision, delivered as part of what appears to be a bitterly-contested divorce dispute, has held that no psychologist may give expert evidence in court unless registered with Namibia’s professional council – and that includes practitioners from just over the border.