High Court Judge Martin Muya now sues JSC over removal from office

Suspended High Court Judge Martin Muya has made good his threat and filed a case against the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) challenging the decision to remove him from office.

Justice Muya, in a petition filed Monday morning at the Milimani Law Courts, wants the decision stayed pending hearing and determination of the case.

According to the embattled judge, the report by JSC is “fundamentally flawed, fatally and incurably defective and therefore wanting in validity and reliability.”

“The entire decision and the entire proceedings as demonstrated were marred with outright bias on the part of the JSC to the detriment of the petitioner,” reads court papers.

He claimed that the proceedings presided by JSC were conducted in absence of the relevant court file.

He further argued that he was not accorded a fair hearing by the commission as enshrined in the constitution and that the report should therefore be quashed.

“The entire report and its findings is therefore irregular, inaccurate, erroneous, invalid and therefore null and void,” adds court papers.

Through his lawyer Philip Nyachoti, the judge faulted JSC for not availing the report to him immediately, adding that he learned of it through the media.

Early this month, JSC asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to form a tribunal to investigate the conduct of three judges, among them Justice Muya, over alleged gross misconduct.

Justice Muya is accused of bias, abuse of office, incompetency and gross misconduct over the manner in which he handled a case where NIC bank had been sued by two petitioners.

“In that case, the honourable Judge, after numerous adjournments, granted an injunction and reserved the reasons thereof for a period of 5 months,” said JSC in a statement.

“This was in total disregard of the pleas by the NIC Bank that the motor vehicles that had been given to it as security were being sold and were eventually sold thus occasioning loss to the bank.”