How Kenya's female justice overcame the chances
Martha Koome is expected to make history in the coming weeks by becoming Kenya's first female chief justice. The 61-year-old came top of 10 candidates interviewed before live television set audience by Kenya's Judicial Service Commission (JSC). "This woman is a breath of fresh air. She answers questions just how they have been asked and also puts her own professional stamp on them," someone commented on YouTube about her performance.
During her interview she referenced her difficult experience growing up in Meru in rural western Kenya in a polygamous family - she was created in 1960, 3 years prior to the end of colonial rule. "I am a villager in the truest sense. My parents were peasant farmers and we were 18 children from two mothers. So, for all of us, especially girls - it was a struggle to overcome the chances."
And she's overcome more odds to attain chief justice as she had not been favourite, with pundits putting their money on Fred Ngatia to be the winning prospect as he had represented President Uhuru Kenyatta in the dispute over the 2017 election. The Supreme Court annulled Mr Kenyatta's victory in August that year, citing irregularities. A fresh vote was ordered, which Mr Kenyatta continued to win amid an opposition boycott.
Justice Ngatia might not exactly have wonthe president's election case, but his fluency and elucidation of legal jurisprudence on to the floor of the court at the time earned him top marks in the eyes of Kenyans over the divide. However Justice Koome was calm, confident and measured during her four-hour grilling - and her record on children and gender rights in addition to her role in drafting Kenya's 2010 constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, stood out.
She spoke with pride about how precisely the constitution now outlaws gender discrimination unlike the old one which "outrightly discriminated against women". "They cannot confer citizenship, it allowed customary practices to prevail… such as child marriage, and FGM. We've come quite a distance," she told the interview panel. She's also served as a commissioner on the African Union's Committee on the Rights and Welfare of Children. Married with three children, she's an extraordinary career spanning three decades after graduating in law from University of Nairobi in 1986 - and has earned many other degrees through the years.
The graduate started as a legal associate in 1988, before forming her own law firm as managing partner in 1993. During her private practice, she became well-known for her defence of human rights, representing political detainees through the regime of President Daniel arap Moi. She was among the lawyers mixed up in clamour in the 1980s to repeal Section 2A of the constitution which made the united states a one-party state.
Often her colleagues would not want to represent female clients, so she took on their cases and came to observe how difficult to it had been to get justice for women in the courts when it found property rights within marriage and inheritance as regulations was "dominated by the patriarchy".This spurred her to seek reforms to ensure the law "took care of families because families will be the foundation of society", Justice Koome said in her interview.
She became what she called "a firebrand" in her activism - and was a founding person in the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), which has since become synonymous with pro-bono representation of victims of gender and sexual violence in Kenya. In 2003, the seasoned lawyer joined the bench when then-President Mwai Kibaki appointed her a higher Court judge. For the next eight years she headed the land and environmental courts along with the family division in Nairobi.
She also served in satellite courts where she credited herself with clearing an enormous backlog of cases at a pace she said was not done before on the continent. Promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2012, four years later she applied unsuccessfully to become a Supreme Court judge. Her biggest challenge during her JSC interview was defending her part within an emergency Court of Appeal hearing on the eve of the election re-run in 2017. A High Court judge had ruled on a case that day that returning electoral officers and their deputies have been illegally appointed.
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta (C) shakes hands with Kenyan Chief Justice David Maraga (L) after taking oath of office through the inauguration ceremony at Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi, Kenya - 28 November 2017 Justice Koome and two other appellant judges overturned this, allowing the vote to just do it - an interim order to avert a constitutional crisis, she said.
At issue for the interview panel was the actual fact that the ruling was made after official working hours and without all parties present - not the decision itself. An unflustered Justice Koome explained that in extraordinary circumstances of national importance the appeal court could do so - and repeated many times that the Supreme Court had subsequently found there have been no issue with the returning officers and the suit have been null and void right from the start. If appointed, Martha Koome is definitely the 15th head of Kenya's highest court since independence.
President Kenyatta has accepted the nomination, and will forward her name to parliament for approval. There are reports that parliament is keen to fast-track her vetting, so Kenya could have its first female Chief Justice much sooner than the 28 days provided for in parliament.It's worth noting how swiftly her name was forwarded by President Kenyatta, who refused to swear in 41 judges nominated by the JSC in 2019. Even a court order declaring his refusal unconstitutional hasn't made him budge.
The president maintains that a number of the judges on the list have questionable integrity, although critics wonder whether this is part of his public declaration to "fix" the judiciary after his election was nullified in 2017. Justice Koome insists she actually is a good team player - and won't hesitate to get the telephone to the president as chief justice to talk things through if you need to.
This she believes is the better way for ending confrontation - helped by food. When asked how she'd manage her fellow Supreme Court judges if there is friction, lunch was her solution. "Food helps people talk nicely… so we will have a number of retreats, eating [there] to understand what's the problem."
