Mombasa, KENYA: Chief Justice David Maraga has refuted claims that the Judiciary is being manipulated by the Jubilee party as country steers towards the elections .
Addressing journalists on Tuesday morning during the judges conference in Mombasa, Maraga said that the Judiciary is not controlled by any political party, adding that they treat all cases handed to them equally and decide on the outcome of the cases within the framework of the law.
“The Judiciary has no political leaning,we deal with the issues before us,the parties and candidates fight for their positions, when they bring their disputes before us ,we decide those disputes on the basis of the law and the evidence presented before us.” Said Maraga.
He termed the accusations as mere fabrications with baseless backings and asked the accusers to give evidence rather than give speculations.
His remarks comes weeks after a section of NASA leaders accused the Judiciary of favoring the Jubilee coalition in its rulings.
“There is nothing like a Judicial officer being aligned to one party or the other. Those are perception and creations of people out there which have no basis whatsoever ,we don’t have them in the Judiciary” He added.
Meanwhile, Maraga said that the Judiciary is expecting plenty of election petitions ahead of the General elections in August, adding that they are ready and capable of dealing with all the cases within the law and within the period set by the constitution.
“We as the Judiciary are prepared to handle those petitions and complete them as required by the constitution within the period set by the constitution.” He said.
He added that the the law has not set a limit on the number of cases that can be petitioned and as the Judiciary they have no alternative but to deal with all cases that are coming.
“We are dealing with the cases as they come and we will continue dealing with them until we finalize all the cases.”He said.
He said that they will deal with all cases while taking caution not to interfere with IEBC.