The search for the next Chief Justice continued yesterday, with a former commissioner with the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), Daniel Wambura, hard-pressed to explain how he was re-absorbed into public service after the agency bungled the 2007 General Election.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) nine-member panel also put Wambura to task to prove that his qualifications meet the criteria set out for those wishing to be appointed to head the Judiciary.
He did not disclose to the panel whether he earned double salaries when he served in ECK without having resigned as a directorate of legal services Foreign Affairs ministry. He said his salary was stopped after the Foreign Affairs ministry allegedly issued him with a letter formally releasing him.
“I was not interviewed for the ECK job. I had not resigned from public service when I was nominated. After the ECK was disbanded in 2008, I stayed jobless for more than one year,” he replied to a question by High Court judge Mohamed Warsame.
Wambura, now the principal administrative secretary in Deputy President William Ruto’s office, said he was appointed by the Public Service Commission in August 2013, but admitted he has never practised law since his admission to the bar in 1996.
He, however, claimed he has relevant legal experience to head the Judiciary. Asked on the bungled 2007 election that resulted in violence, Wambura said former ECK commissioners suffered mental torture and most of them resorted to prayer, meditation and counselling.
“Elections can be very divisive. I highly regret the outcome of the 2007 General Election and the violence that followed. We took collective responsibility for the bungled election,” he said.
There was a light moment in the room when asked by Senior Counsel Tom Ojienda whether he wanted to transfer the ECK failure to the Judiciary, Wambura said: “No.
I have transformed institutions. It is I who applied for the post of Chief Justice and as opposed to the ECK.” Wambura was among candidates initially disqualified for the CJ’s post by theJSC before the High Court issued an order in their favour.
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