New law: Protests at review panel picks

Interviews to pick the head of the powerful commission that will implement the new Constitution started on Friday amid protests that the exercise was flawed.

A Nairobi lawyer threatened to move to court to block the interviews for the chairperson and commissioners of the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (COIC) on grounds that the exercise to shortlist candidates was not transparent.

Deceive Kenyans

“It is not possible for the Public Service Commission to have evaluated all the CVs of the 425 applicants in such a short time,” argued Mr Charles Ongoto.

“The whole exercise was just meant to deceive Kenyans that due process was being followed yet they had specific people in mind, for the various positions,” he added.

Mr Ongoto questioned the criteria used to select the 50 candidates shortlisted for the eight positions of commissioners and threatened to go to court to block the interviews.

“If the exercise is not stopped, we will file a case in court seeking to halt the process,” Mr Ongoto threatened, adding that he had already notified the Parliamentary Justice and Legal Affairs committee of his intention.

The threats came as the eight lawyers who had been shortlisted for the post of the commission’s chairperson turned up at the Public Service Commission (PSC) headquarters to be interviewed for the job.

The exercise, however, took much longer than anticipated, with the interviewing panel taking as long as two hours to interview some of the shortlisted candidates rather than the 30 minutes initially planned for each interviewee.

The interviewing panel comprised officials drawn from the PSC and various government departments. Kenya’s ambassador to Belgium and former Kiharu MP Kembi Gitura was the first to face the panel shortly after 9 a.m. The interview lasted close to one hour.

Mr Gitura declined to talk to the press after the interview, as did the seven other candidates for the job, including President Kibaki’s advisor on constitutional matters Prof Kivutha Kibwana, law lecturer Mutakha Kangu, veteran lawyer Gibson Kamau Kuria and former Kenyan envoy to France and Canada Ms Raychelle Omamo.

Other interviewees included Ms Koki Muli, Mr Charles Nyachae and Mr Mwangi Kariuki.

Special issue

The eight were picked from a total of 17 applicants following a special issue of the Kenya Gazette issued by President Kibaki on November 1.

To qualify for the job, which is only open to Kenyan citizens, the candidate is required to be qualified to serve as a supreme court judge.

A supreme court judge should have at least 15 years experience as a judge of a superior court or at least 15 years experience as a distinguished academic, judicial officer, legal practitioner or such experience in other relevant legal fields.

However, they must not be serving public officers or have served as members of the Committee of Experts (CoE). The panel is expected to start interviews for positions of commissioners on Saturday morning.

According to the notice published in yesterday’s dailies, the panel will interview 25 shortlisted candidates today and interview the other 25 on Sunday. Each interview will take 20 minutes, the notice stated.