Kenyans seeking CJ and AG posts to apply for jobs

Anyone interested in becoming the next Chief Justice or Attorney General will have to put in an application first.

This will be a departure from the past when the posts were filled when the president appointed someone of his choice, participants at a conference on the pace of reforms heard on Friday.

Elsewhere, National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende called on the two principals to hasten the process of appointing the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecution.

At the same time, MPs were asked to quickly approve the names of nominees to the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution which has held the process hostage.

The positions of chief justice and attorney-general, which fall vacant in January and August, will be publicly advertised.

Chief Justice Evans Gicheru has until the end of January to vacate his office while Mr Amos Wako will serve until August next year when he quits as the new Constitution provides.

It was a key issue during the closed door meeting convened by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities chaired by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. The meeting, which ended on Friday, was opened by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Mr Annan on Thursday.

Participants were from the government, parliament, civil society, the clergy and the media. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who was a guest speaker, said he will file two cases against key suspects of post election violence with The Hague judges in two weeks time.

On Friday, the participants whose names cannot be made public, agreed on the urgency of unlocking the stalemate that was delaying the implementation of the new Constitution.

The meeting was known as: “Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation: Two Years On: Where Are We?”

They were united in stating that setting up the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution was the only way to set the pace for reforms and blamed MPs for the delay.

They were united in stating that setting up the CIC and the Commission on Revenue Allocation was the only way to set the pace for reforms and blamed MPs for the delay.

The CIC is critical because it has the task of preparing the 49 Bills which are supposed to be passed by Parliament to bring into force most of the provisions of the new Constitution. They have, for instance, delayed the setting up of the Judicial Service Commission and the Supreme Court.

Also delayed are the legislations that will guide the vetting of judges. There were sharp differences among participants on suggestions that three of the seven judges of the Supreme Court be recruited from the Commonwealth.

Participants urged President Kibaki and Mr Odinga to step in and ensure that the two commissions are set up. Participants asked the government to isolate the legislations which are urgent and fast track their drafting and present them to Parliament for debate.

They supported the decision by Mr Moreno-Ocampo to file the two cases in two weeks time and urged the government not to fear the repercussions. The government was also asked to ensure that members to commissions set up are people with integrity and that the commissions are financed to enable them execute their mandate.

Participants urged President Kibaki and Mr Odinga to move the process forward. National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende told the closing ceremony of the annual Kenya section of the International Jurists Commission at the Mombasa Continental hotel that failure to constitute the commissions on the 90th day after passing of the new Constitution was not fatal provided the timelines do not extend beyond a certain period.

While calling on the two principals to hasten the process of appointing the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecution; Mr Marende said the deadline for which these positions ought to have been advertised had lapsed. Parliament had proposed that they be advertised by the end of November.

 “The responsibility lies with the two principals and I want to hope that action will soon be taken by the relevant authorities in processing the appointments at the earliest opportunity,” he said. The two, he said ought to put machinery in place for the appointment of these officers in order to give Parliament sufficient time to go through the names and approve.

The Speaker added that Parliament should not be used as a ‘rubber stamp’, by forwarding names of proposed appointments at the 11th hour, like was the case with those proposed to the Commissions on Implementation of the Constitution and Revenue Allocation. “The names of these appointees came on the last day and therefore Parliament did not have sufficient time to make the right input as is required by the Constitution,” he noted.

But he emphasised that there was need to ensure that the Commission on Implementation of the Constitution is in place next week so that it can have its input on Bills before the second reading. At the same time, he noted that Parliament had proposed that the Supreme Court be urgently constituted, latest by May 2011, although Section 21 of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution requires that the establishment and appointment of judges be completed within one year.

As far as enactment of legislation relating to the Judiciary was concerned, the Speaker said that the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Bill and Judicial Service Bill 2010 had already undergone the first reading and Parliament had prioritised their consideration and set a target for their enactment by the end of December 2010 and before the end of the current session respectively. “If the Bill on vetting is not enacted by December, then Parliament will have to reconvene early,” he noted.