AG ordered to give list of all civil servants
Attorney-General Amos Wako has been given 45 days within which to provide a list of all civil servants in the country for purposes of checking if gender equity is followed in government appointments.
Mr Wako is also expected to provide another list of those working in the parastatals to enable eight non governmental organisations challenging President Kibaki’s nominations to justice and budget office jobs to demonstrate to court whether or not gender equity has been followed in appointments to public offices.
The undertaking to provide the data was given by senior state counsel Wanjiku Mbiyu on behalf of the AG after the non-governmental organisations sought for it.
When the case came up for mention on Monday, the organisations sought more time to enable them consolidate the issues they want to address the court on now that the nominations had been withdrawn.
The case was focusing on the nominations and the main order sought was to declare the move by President Kibaki unconstitutional on the grounds that gender equity was not considered and the Judicial Service Commission was ignored.
And now that the Judicial Service Commission is involved in the process, they want to highlight other issues which they say need to be dealt with despite the withdrawal of the names.
This are, for example, issues on whether all government appointments put into consideration gender equity.
Power
The second issue is one concerning the exercise of power allocated to the office of the President and whether the office holder exercises it in accordance with the law.
However, the AG is of the view that the substance of the matter was dealt with once the names were withdrawn.
As a result, the AG believes, the case has been overtaken by events and he intends not to file any new response even though the parties are raising new issues.
The AG will remain a party to the case and will make submissions and not file any new grounds.
The case by the eight non governmental organisations was filed following the President’s nomination of court of appeal judge Alnashir Visram as chief justice, Prof Githu Muigai as AG, Kioko Kilukumi as director of public prosecution and Mr William Kirwa as controller of budget.
This drew strong opposition from Prime Minister Raila Odinga who said he was not consulted as required by law.
Others who opposed the nominations were the Judicial Service Commission, the AG, the parliamentary speaker, the Committee on Implementation of the Constitution and the civil society.
This led to withdrawal of the names by the President.
The parties will come to court and argue their case for three days starting May 16.
