In 2016, a petition was filed before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to force Justice Jackton Ojwang to withdraw from a case which had been filed in Supreme Court on Awendo sugar belt.
He replied to the petition in which then Chief Justice Willy Mutunga was chairing JSC. The judge was amused that he was being asked to reply to a complaint which he claimed he had no interest in.
“ The petition is in bad faith, it is evident intention is to disrupt the proper working of the Supreme Court. It is quite surprising that the Judcial Service Commission, chaired by the Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga, could call me to respond to such claims,” wrote Prof. Ojwang in a letter seen by Nairobi Journal.
After Dr. Mutunga left the judiciary, without determining the fate of the judge and now came Justice David Maraga.
After three years of sleeping on the file, again, the judge was required to go respond to the allegations and this time CJ Maraga at the steering wheel.
After he failed to appear before a committee composed of Court of Appeal judge Mohamed Warsame, Mercy Ndeche, High Court judge Aggrey Muchelule and former Agriculture Cabinet secretary Felix Koskei, the full commission adopted the commitee’s recommendation that he faces the tribunal.
It is claimed that JSC switched the allegations to now accuse Justice Ojwang with benefiting from a 2014 Governor Okoth Obado election petition case.
JSC in its announcement to the public said that they had found the judge to have misconducted himself in the Awendo case.
However, The Standard reported today that they instead told President Uhuru Kenyatta that the complaint was anchored on the election petition.
Justice Ojwang in his replies to JSC maintains that Obado never built any private road for him. He pointed an accusing finger for witch hunt against ‘well known JSC commissioners.’
A tribunal was earlier today sworn in. It will either vindicate or have him exit the judiciary just at the tail end of his career.
