CJ Koome dismisses President Ruto claim of Judiciary, Executive housing tax deal

Chief Justice Martha Koome has defended the Judiciary over the new housing levy law saying the third arm of government was not party to any agreement for the implementation of the programme.

This follows President William Ruto's speech on Saturday in Bomet where he said that the Executive was in agreement with the Judiciary on the programme.

Speaking in Naivasha on Thursday, CJ Koome said the Judiciary is independent and its mandate was to execute its legal duty in regard to the housing levy issue.

She highlighted that the Judiciary was an independent party in the court case which had earlier seen implementation of the levy suspended.

“Judiciary is not, in any capacity, able to enter into any agreement with the Executive, especially in a matter that is before court. The Judiciary was not a party in that cause, and I tried to look at the clip where the President was quoted to have said he entered into an agreement with the Judiciary,” she said.

“I’m a judge, I’m not a communication expert, but what I could deduce from that conversation is that it was taken out of context or there was misinterpretation. Because what the President was saying is that he agreed with the judgement of the court that gave directions on what needed to be done to create a framework on how to administer the housing levy, and what he was telling Kenyans is that the Executive has complied with the directions given in the judgement.”

At the same time, Koome rejected a Bill that sought to have the Employment and Labour Relations Court and the Environment and Lands Court merged, noting that this had been overtaken by time.

She noted that the Judiciary's concerns have been brought to the attention of Parliament by raising objections to the Bill that seeks to crawl back the gains made in addressing the issues of labour in the country.

Koome however applauded the Employment and Labour Relations Courts (ELRC) for moving in to reduce case backlog in the last one year.

Over 3,400 cases have been resolved by these courts in the last one year while the adjournment rate has reduced from three to two per cent.

Also present at the conference was Labour Cabinet Secretary Florence Bore who said that the ministry had embarked on the process of amending the country’s archaic labour laws.

On his part, Justice Daniel Musinga said that in the last six months, the Court of Appeal had received 8,443 appeal cases, with Nairobi leading at 891.