Justice Riaga Omolo
Justice Omollo joined the Judiciary in 1975 as a district magistrate. He was appointed High Court judge in 1985 and elevated to the Court of Appeal in 1993 where he grew to become the senior most judge and also a board member of the Judiciary Training Institute prior to the establishment of the Supreme Court.
The Board found Justice Riaga Omolo to be lacking in “independence and impartiality” in a series of decisions he had given in some highly publicised political matters. He was found to have bent the law in favour of the incumbent President at a time of political repression and played an “active role in frustrating rather than enhancing judicial scrutiny” of alleged electoral irregularities and that he had not held back from using his judicial authority to manipulate the law in order to achieve a result that favoured impunity, limited democratic expression and curtailed freedom.
Justice Emmanuel
Okelo O’Kubasu
Justice O’Kubasu commenced his public service as a State Counsel in the Attorney-General’s office. In 1974 he was appointed Resident Magistrate and in 1977 was promoted to the position of Senior Resident Magistrate.
During his magisterial days he served in various parts of the country until his appointment as a judge of the High Court at the young age of 35 years. In the latter capacity, he also served in several stations. In December 1999 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal.
Judge O’Kubasu was dismissed over allegations of lack of integrity and fairness in decisions on cases that he was hosted in a London hotel by a man whose brother had a case before him, and that he presided over the case filed by a businessman who was close to him. The Board also found the judge to have displayed a “disconcerting lack of candour”
Justice Samuel Bosire
Justice Bosire graduated with LL.B from the University of Nairobi in 1974 and became one of the early generation of Kenyans of African descent to serve on the Bench. He joined the judiciary as a District Magistrate II and worked his way up to becoming a judge of the Court of Appeal.
In 1982 he was appointed Judge-Advocate to try mutineers in the Kenya Armed Forces (KAF) following a failed coup in that year.
The vetting board indicted him for decisions he made when he chaired the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg affair specifically for ignoring an order by the High Court that required the Commission to summon as witnesses ten prominent persons including the former President Daniel arap Moi, and also for choosing not to comply with an explicit and precise High Court order made against him as second respondent in an ex parte matter.
Joseph Gregory Nyamu
Justice Nyamu worked in the Attorney General’s office as a State Counsel and also as Nairobi’s Assistant Town Clerk in the 1970s. He also worked as Senior Partner in the long-standing law firm Hamilton Harrison & Mathews founded in 1902. He was appointed High Court judge in 2002, serving as the presiding judge in the Constitutional Review Division for seven years. He was elevated to the Court of Appeal in 2009. He earned his marching orders for a number of startling decisions he made in cases relating to the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scandals. According to the vetting board, he made a series of rulings that frustrated attempts by prosecuting authorities to hold prominent businessmen and political figures to account. All the rulings appeared to bend the law to protect impunity. He was part of the bench of three whose ruling permanently ended the then impending trial of the late internal security minister, George Saitoti, over the Goldenberg scanda. ^
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