C.B. Madan was more than Kenya's finest Chief Justice

Heroes are often forgotten. In the good old days, they would join the roll of the forgotten more or less soon after death.

Our modern generation has changed this. Nowadays heroes are forgotten long before they die.

If you are not ‘trending’ you are dead, or at best, you are a non-entity, nobody. If you are Googled and you do not appear, then you don’t exist.

Digital mobile photos, selfies, Twitter and Snapchat are rather poor means for archiving history, because they are automatically wiped out.

Some vanish in the unreachable desserts of the 'cloud' while others get lost together with our devices.

Kenya has a good number of unsung heroes; hidden champions who moulded the country’s history and every so often prevented its imminent collapse.

THE TAINT OF RACISM

They have been judges, politicians, professionals, simple people, military personnel, journalists, fathers and mothers and prisoners. People who have given their best to the country they deeply loved.

C. B. Madan was one of those extraordinary men the country was blessed to have. He was a government minister who agitated for independence, and went on to become a prestigious and independent Chief Justice.

“Madan is regarded as one of the best judges to ever sit on the Judiciary and also the best CJ to ever head it. He was called to the Bar in London at the Middle Temple Inn at the age of 21. He was later to be recognised by the Queen of England with the prestigious honour of Queen’s Counsel. Madan is remembered for his brilliance, sound understanding of the law, and independence from the Executive. His judgments, rendered in prose and poetry, still excite the intellect of law students and practicing advocates alike.”

Madan’s son, Anil, narrates a beautiful story. “In the 1950s there was an ice-cream store in Nairobi that served only whites and boldly proclaimed so with a sign. As a Minister in the Kenya Government, he could not abide this. He went to the ice-cream parlour with an entourage and demanded service. Since he was a Minister, they did serve him. He bought ice-cream for the group and, at his instance, they all threw it on the street – refusing to eat ice-cream flavoured with the taint of racism. The owner called the police who refused to take action against Dad, most likely because he was a Minister.”

C. B. Madan had a reputation for not tolerating nonsense. He was the inspiration that led Gitobu Imanyara to promote the C. B. Madan Prize, a prize for legal excellence, to celebrate some of those forgotten unsung heroes in the legal profession.

OWNERS OF NON-REAL PROPERTY

This year’s Madan Prize award ceremony, the third, coincided with the first anniversary of the Platform, Gitobu’s new intellectual, engaging legal magazine. The function was hosted by Strathmore Law School.

The award ceremony brought together two remarkable Strathmore alumni, Willy Mutunga and James Mworia. Mutunga represents the rule of law and judicial independence, and James, economic development.

These two concepts, personified here by these two old boys, walk hand in hand; neither of them can survive without the other.

James Mworia was appointed the CEO of Centum in 2008. Since then he has presided over an organisation that has recorded an average annual return of more than 30 per cent, increasing the value of assets from Sh6 billion to almost Sh200 billion and recorded a cumulative growth of more than 550 per cent in shareholder value.

Mr Mworia gave the C. B. Madan Memorial Lecture. In his usually sharp and witty style, he aligned the rule of law and judicial independence to economic development.

“To protect democracy and the rule of law it is important to create the ‘stakeholder effect’. It is important that we transition from an agricultural society into an industrial and post industrial society, where the majority can participate as owners of non real property and capital, both of which are unlimited.”

James added that, “the biggest risk to constitutionalism and democracy in Kenya is the fact that there are too few stakeholders and those who have a stake have it in the form of land ownership, which on average is deployed in a very unproductive manner. This may explain why corruption is generally widespread, because many citizens do not consider the resources that are squandered or stolen as theirs.”

MISSIONARY FOR JUSTICE

The award ceremony also brought together several of those men and women who were at the forefront of the struggle for a multiparty democracy: Martha Karua, Paul Muite, Pheroze Nowrojee and many others who came to witness the beautiful and colourful award ceremony.

The prize winner was retired Judge John Michael Khamoni, a kind, simple and intelligent judge.

Justice Khamoni is not rich and famous, but he left a beautiful legacy, the legacy of an independent, uncompromised fine legal mind.

Sam Alfan says that according to CJ Willy Mutunga, Khamoni deserved this year’s award for he epitomised the late Justice Madan’s humility, modesty, and humane nature. He was a great missionary of justice.

CJ Mutunga also apologised to Justice Khamoni ‘for having been a victim of judicial monarchy’ and added that Justice Khamoni has been the face and gait of justice long before the 2010 Constitution brought in new values into the Judiciary.

In his acceptance speech, Justice Khamoni said that he always considered his judgments to be in God’s presence, the ultimate Chief Justice, who will judge us all and from whom there is no possible appeal.

The ceremony was simple but gracious. Justice Khamoni had been ‘trending’ for a few minutes, but then the ceremony came to an end. That brought him back to life in our modern world.

Khamoni is now an old man. But he is at the forefront of a beautiful legacy, the legacy of honesty, simplicity and work well done. A legacy worth emulating.  

Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi