Parliament’s Justice Committee holds approval hearing for DPP nominee

The National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee has held an approval hearing for the nominee for the position of Director Public Prosecution Renson Mulele Ingonga.

The hearing which was held during a session chaired by the committee chairman George Murugara, now paves way for the debate and approval of Mulele on the floor of the House by MPs.

If approved by the House, then Mulele will be a step away from succeeding former DPP Noordin Haji who was nominated and appointed as the director of national intelligence by President William Ruto.

During the committee hearing session, Mulele told the committee members that if approved as the next DPP, he will be committed to pursuing a three-fold agenda.

This he said will include building a people-centred prosecution service, creating innovative prosecution framework and positioning prosecutions as an enabler of National development.

The committee had during the session sought to know how Mulele was going to handle the recent trend of high-profile cases being withdrawn for lack of evidence.

“We have seen a number of high-profile cases in court have been withdrawn for lack of evidence. Some of these withdrawals are politically instigated. If your nomination is approved, what are you going to do to stop this?,” Murugara asked.

In his response, the nominee told the members that the power of the DPP to withdraw a court case is anchored in law and that the court first verifies if the reasons given for seeking withdrawal of a case are valid or not.

He further argued that the reason why the DPP makes applications for withdrawal of cases is to save the public their money in scenarios where it is discovered that there is lack of enough evidence to proceed with a case.

The nominee assured the Committee that in his tenure, if approved, there will be no political interference since he will be guided by the rule of law in execution of his duties.

“The mandate of the DPP is clear. The office institutionalizes any criminal proceedings other than in court martial. It also has power to withdraw a case before court for a valid reason,” Mr. Mulele told the Committee.

The Committee also wanted to know how the nominee will ensure there will be no fallout between his office and that of Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) as witnessed between the immediate former DCI and DPP bosses, George Kinoti and Noordin Haji respectively.

Mulele attributed the fallout to lack of understanding of specific mandates by the two institutions.

He therefore, assured the Committee that once in office he will sit with the DCI office and distinguish the mandate of each institution.