Kenya Court Quashes Supreme Court Judge's Prosecution

(Bloomberg) -- A Kenyan court ruled prosecutors shouldn’t proceed with a case against Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, saying investigators had illegally accessed her bank accounts.

Mwilu was facing 13 charges including abuse of office, tax evasion and receiving a loan under false pretenses from Imperial Bank Ltd., which is under administration. Mwilu was arrested about a year after she and other judges annulled a presidential election in a judgement that enraged President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“The Directorate of Criminal Investigations violated her rights to privacy,” High Court Judge Helen Omondi said Friday on behalf of a five-member bench. “The manner in which they obtained the evidence of her bank accounts was illegal. They acquired the documents in misuse of the court order and misrepresentation.”

The court ruled that Mwilu didn’t evade tax as alleged and that a charge of abuse of office should have been handled by the Judicial Service Commission. The rest of the charges were thrown out.

Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji told journalists, after the ruling, that his office plans to appeal, and submit a complaint to the commission, the agency that employees judges in Kenya.

READ: Kenyan Prosecutors Arrest Top Judge for Alleged Corruption

In August, authorities arrested Mwilu, one of four judges who annulled a presidential election in 2017. Kenyatta criticized that judgement as a “judicial coup,” said the judges were “crooks” and pledged to “revisit this agenda.” Kenyatta won the subsequent vote.

Allowing the arrest of judicial officers would expose judges to harassment and intimidation from the executive, the court said in its Friday ruling.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Herbling in Nairobi at dherbling@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura, Renee Bonorchis

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