Who’s Messing with Who?
Kenyans have been treated to a political war of words in recent days. It was manifested in President Ruto’s strife with the Judiciary as he openly claimed that it was getting in the way of the implementation of important policies. In several landmark rulings, the courts had several government schemes to a halt including; the Affordable Housing Fund, a universal healthcare initiative, and a deployment of Kenyan security units to Haiti. President Ruto threatened to disobey court orders, stating that this was a move to deliberately sabotage his key development projects. He also out the ‘judicial tyranny’ and ‘judicial impunity’ apparently demonstrated by the courts, claiming that it was a show of the deep-rooted corruption in the judiciary.
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In what was an unexpected turn of events, Chief Justice Martha Koome extended an olive branch to the President, and a reconciliatory meeting was set up between the two. The details of the meeting were incredibly hazy since both Ruto and Koome only gave whittled-down statements, promising to uphold the independence of the judiciary, speed up corruption cases, and increase funding to the courts. The Chief Justice had on an earlier date, called out the President’s atavistic attacks on the judiciary which are incredibly reminiscent of similar antics employed by President Moi before him.
The backlash against the attack on the Judiciary has been immense. Civil societies, political observers as well as ordinary Kenyans have been quick to raise concerns about the nature of demeaning the state of the Judiciary. At the forefront of it all has been the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), which is the umbrella organization for legal practitioners in Kenya. The Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association (KAMJA) has also responded to the accusations fronted by the President, stating that these are only meant to rub insult on the independence of the judicial arm.
The LSK led by its President, Eric Theuri has also not minced its opinion on the matter, stating that the criticism was “in a way intended to intimidate the court”. Furthermore, Koome’s cozying up with the President was met with its fair share of reprisals, and in the words of Mr. Theuri, the Judiciary had gone to its Executive oppressor with ‘a begging bowl’.
The Kenyan government is organized under three main arms; the legislature which is meant to develop and pass laws, the executive which is meant to implement and enact the laws passed by the legislature and the judiciary which is meant to interpret and oversee the implementation of these laws. All in all, the three arms of government are meant to operate independently but collectively to ensure a concerted system of governance in the Republic.
Inside Ruto’s Strife with the Judiciary.
The Kenyan Constitution in Article 160 (1) states that ‘The Judiciary, as constituted by Article 161, shall be subject only to this Constitution and the law and shall not be subject to the control or direction of any person or authority.’ The jurisdiction of the judicial arm of government is vested only in the responsibilities divulged unto it by the constitution and not to the hunches and desires of any other individual or governing authority. Therefore, the recent actions by President Ruto constitute an over-stepping of his mandated authority as head of the executive, since he has no right to try and keep the Judiciary under his leash.
Kenya operates under a Presidential system of governance. In other words, the president and members of the legislature are all directly elected by the population. Upon the formation of government, the president is expected to formulate his own executive. The legislature retains some form of oversight over the executive but the two arms of government are largely independent from each other. The Judiciary thus plays an important role in this form of government as it keeps the executive’s conduct in check.
Nonetheless, this form of government has been termed to be quite rigid as the three arms of government can delay the formulation and implementation of valuable policies by arguing over simple ‘checks and balances’. However, it is this bureaucratic organization that prevents either arm from overarching over the others or from succumbing to control by the regime powers. The complexity of control in the Presidential System is by design, as it prevents the overpowered executive from turning democratic institutions into tools of autocratic domination.
President Ruto is now forced to face the tough reality of the situation unraveling before him. He managed to grasp control over the legislature by exerting the influence of his political movement over the Senate and the National Assembly. Upon his ascent to the Presidential office, he went on a spree of solidifying his influence on government, recruiting former members of the opposition to ‘the government’. In so doing, his political outfit maintains a majority of numbers in Parliament, meaning that any bill that is friendly to his regime gets the nod from the legislature.
Ruto perhaps assumed that the Judiciary would give him no qualms, seeing it has started on the right foot with his regime by upholding the status of his election on September 5th, 2022, in a case lodged at the Supreme Court challenging his victory in General Elections held on August.
The new-found strife with the Judiciary comes in a slew of unpopular measures by the Kenya Kwanza government meant to widen the government’s tax bracket. Ruto was elected on a wave of populism as he pledged to wipe out corruption, reduce the cost of living, and cut down on government spending. However, his stint in power has been continually characterized by unending allegations of corruption in public office, a tremendous increase in the cost of living, and increased spending in a government that is creaking under the weight of its debt. One has only but to question the nature of some of the policies behind Ruto and his government.
Questionable Policy Reforms.
The Finance Act of 2023, The Housing Levy Fund, and the Social Health Insurance Fund are some of the policy implementations by Ruto’s government, some of which have been shot down by the courts. All of these are targeted at leaving bigger dents on the already thinning pay slips for many Kenyans even as the government hopes to collect more money to fund itself. However, it is quite apparent that the government has massive financial liquidity problems and it has been forced to rely on debt to solve its fiscal deficits. Ruto’s government has particularly warmed up to the West and it has been borrowing heavily, particularly from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
The IMF offers loans to countries under economic distress in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). In addition to receiving financial aid, countries are expected to adhere to a set of recommended policy reforms that are directed toward improving their economic stature. While these reforms have been responsible for implementing neo-liberal structures for many developing countries, they have also come under harsh criticism for being tools of exerting political influence by the West and particularly, the United States.
Most of the policies being propped up by Ruto’s government seem to not only align with the IMF’s recommendations but are also directly aimed at raising more funds to repay the debts that the country currently owes. Nonetheless, it would be unsurprising to find out that these policy implementations are fronts for Ponzi schemes implemented by those in government to raise more money to fund their corrupt activities.
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