Five years on, Kerubo’s lawyer recalls battle that felled Baraza

Five years ago this week, a seven-member tribunal was sworn in to discuss the conduct of a powerful woman in the Judiciary.

Dr Nancy Baraza, the then Deputy Chief Justice, was facing a probe for allegedly threatening to shoot a guard, Ms Rebecca Kerubo, during an argument at Nairobi’s Village Market mall on the 2011 New Year’s Eve.

But Dr Baraza was not ready to face the tribunal without a fight. She had filed a case challenging the suitability of the tribunal members to probe her. In the end she lost the case, appeared before the tribunal and the team finally recommended that she be sacked.

Not one to take things lying down, Dr Baraza challenged the tribunal’s decision in the Supreme Court in August 2012. Two months later, she dropped the case and resigned following what she called a predetermined mind by the then Chief Justice Willy Mutunga who had discussed the matter on a TV show.

Five years later, numerous people have walked in and out of the Village Market mall where the incident happened. Dr Mutunga has been replaced by Chief Justice David Maraga. Dr Baraza has since gone into lecturing and farming while Ms Kerubo has kept a low profile.

Looking back, Kiharu MP Irungu Kang’ata, who was Ms Kerubo’s lawyer up to the time Dr Baraza quit, sees the incident as a blessing in disguise.

DENYING CLAIMS

“The idea of fighting for a poor person does have an impact because that Kerubo thing did contribute somehow to my win in Kiharu. It played a part; that’s a fact,” the first-time MP told the Nation.

Denying vigorously all claims that he took up the role for self-promotion, Mr Kang’ata said he “found himself” in the matter.

“When you have a case, publicity will follow if the media have an issue. So, it’s not something I solicited. It just found me there,” he said.
However, the matter would give Mr Kang’ata blushes when he enrolled for a Master’s degree in Law at the University of Nairobi two years after Dr Baraza quit.

“I later on met with Dr Baraza at the University of Nairobi because I was doing my Master’s. She was teaching our class but I had an option to choose her class or another class. I chose another class. She was teaching jurisprudence. I opted for another class,” said the lawmaker.

“I used to see her and dodge. And then one day we met. She told me, ‘Weh! You always see me and you run away. But you know, humans meet. But that matter ended’,” said the vocal Jubilee legislator who graduated with a Master’s in December 2015.

Mr Kang’ata said Ms Kerubo left for South Sudan with her husband shortly after the dust settled on the matter and he has not heard from them since.

NEVER RETURNED

“We were to sue her [Dr Baraza] for some damages in a civil suit separately, but they never returned. There were some documents they were supposed to sign but when they went, we lost contact,” he noted.

In an unpublished interview with the Sunday Nation and NTV in February last year, Dr Baraza said she has nothing but love for Ms Kerubo and that she longed for the day she would sit with her over a cup of tea and talk things over.

“Even now, sometimes I feel like … just to sit down again and have a cup of tea and still tell her that I never looked down upon her. I look back, I think the way I was relating with her is probably the way I should have related with you [journalists] because it is a certain level.

There, I think I made a mistake,” she said. “The only person who will judge me right will be my God; but I learnt a lesson. I needed to have related differently.”

Dr Baraza noted that the experience made her change the way she treats people.

“I now try to relate with people differently, although if you go to any supermarket, if you go to Sarit Centre where I go, the askaris are my friends. There is no Christmas that I don’t give them presents.” she said.