Tunoi tribunal winds up without finding on Sh200m bribery claim

Kenyans may never know whether or not former Supreme Court Judge Philip Tunoi received an alleged Sh200 million bribe.

This is after the Sharad Rao- led tribunal formed to investigate the matter Monday said that it could not continue the inquiry following a ruling by the Supreme Court that effectively send the Judge on retirement.

Supreme Court judges last week upheld a Court of Appeal verdict that all judges, even those employed before 2010, should retire at the age of 70.

In his ruling Monday, Mr Rao noted that as per the Supreme Court judgement Justice Tunoi had retired on June 2, 2014 and as such was no longer a serving judge.

“As there is no person before it, there is no point in investigating further his conduct and the proceedings before the tribunal must necessarily come to an end. We can find no provisions in the Constitution to support proceeding to further hearing matters as regards the now retired judge,” he said.

The premature conclusion of the sittings comes before all the witnesses had been presented to give their testimonies. 

The ex-Supreme Court Judge had also not had an opportunity to testify even though he was through his lawyer Fred Ngatia able to poke holes into the Kiplagat affidavit.

Mr Ngatia in his final submissions asked the tribunal to let the former judge retire in peace, noting that Mr Kiplagat did not file a complaint with the JSC but was instead convinced to swear an affidavit by lawyers who were interested in the petition.

Mr Tunoi noted that the allegations made were not substantiated as no one witness admitted to seeing a bag full of money. “It is a pity we won’t see all the witnesses testify,” he said.

The assisting counsel Paul Nyamodi noted that lawyer Issa Mansur was among the witnesses yet to testify before the Commission and that others were due to be recalled for clarifications.

“Those were not all the witnesses but bearing in mind the circumstances it is the best we could do. Investigations were continuing and there was no telling how many more witnesses would have been called,” he said.

Journalist Geoffrey Kiplagat in a sworn affidavit alleged that Justice Tunoi received the bribe from Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero to rule in his favour in an election petition by Kabete MP Ferdinand Waititu.

Before the tribunal was appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, the executive sparked a controversy with a letter written through his chief of staff, Joseph Kinyua, stating that Mr Kenyatta had decided not to act on the Judicial Service Commission’s (JSC) recommendation to establish a tribunal on grounds that Justice Tunoi was already retired from the Bench by a High Court ruling.

The tribunal is now expected to give a report to President Kenyatta on the evidence they have so far gathered, but will not provide any findings.