Mbogholi: I won’t shy away from judges’ age disputes

High Court Judge Mbogholi Msagha has said he would decisively tackle the raging dispute over retirement age of judges should the matter return to the Supreme Court under his stewardship as Chief Justice.

The last time the issue came up in June, three of the Supreme Court judges disqualified themselves from hearing the case involving their peers, precipitating a quorum hitch.

Their disqualification forced former deputy chief justice Kalpana Rawal and former Supreme Court judge Philip Tunoi to give up their positions.

“If the applicants were to have the matter reviewed, I would not shy from looking at it with others in Bench to see if it has merit,” he told the Judicial Service Commission interview panel on Tuesday.

The judge, the second one to face the panel interviewing judges for the position of chief Justice after Monday’s appearance of Justice Alnashir Visram, said he would follow in the footsteps of former CJ Willy Mutunga “and build on the foundation of reforms.”

“I do not speak sheng, Not at all. I am not on social media, I believe that was a personal choice for Mutunga but I would not go there,” the judge said when asked if he was as tech-savvy as his predecessor.

Among the reforms he proposed was the introduction of practice regulations that would ensure fast adjudication of corruption cases similar to those that require election petitions to be complete, as well as introduction of case managers and chief court administrators.

On terrorism cases, Justice Msagha said a good judgement was dependent on the case that had been presented by the investigators and the prosecution.

Even though the judge said he was a firm believer of devolution, he was unable to name three governors off the top of his head.

This is the second time the high court judge is trying his luck for the top position. If elected he said he would only serve for five years so as avoid being complacent or too familiar with players and become susceptible to compromise.