Kenyan Files a Petition for Removal of High Court Judge Anthony Mrima

A Kenyan has filed a petition before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) seeking the removal of High Court judge Anthony Mrima. 

The petitioner, Michael Mutembei Kibutha Makarina cites gross misconduct, bias, and incompetence as the main grounds for the ouster of Justice Mrima.

Mutembei claims that the judge demonstrated bias in a case in which the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of court after defying an order to return firearms seized from businessman Jimi Wanjigi.

He argues that the sentencing of Kinoti was made under the court’s stubborn insistence that the guns were in his custody.

The petitioner wants the JSC to probe the conduct of Justice Mrima to establish whether he may have received any benefit for taking a deliberate legal misdirection.

“The Judicial Service Commission be pleased to order the immediate suspension of the Honourable Justice Anthony Mrima for his open show of bias, incompetence, corruption, misbehavior, and misconduct in the exercise of his judicial functions in Petition no.520 of 2017 between Jimi Wanjigi & another versus Inspector General of Police and 3 others,” the petition reads.

Through his lawyer Danstan Omari, Mutembei accuses the judge of ignoring the role Kinoti played to bring security within the country.

“It is appalling and a clear abuse of the judicial discretion to have witnessed the accused judge run over the Director of the Criminal Investigations and to have convicted him to jail for four months without any other option for the decision of the court while being ignorant of the evidence,” Mutembei adds.