REPUBLIC OF KENYA - The Judiciary

[77] The remarkable element in the conduct of the applicant’s case,
has been the sustained invocation of general principles declared in the
Constitution; but no self-evident instances of interpretive fault, or of
erroneous application of law, was laid before the Court. Learned
counsel invoked his client’s constitutional entitlement to a fair trial,
which the Macharia precedent would deny; but he barely took into
account the prior jurisdictional question which, alone, must determine
whether even a genuine grievance is to be entertained. The Court had
been obliged to pronounce upon Section 14 of the Supreme Court Act,
as part of the initial resolution of the jurisdictional question. If it may
be thought that any error was entailed in the Court’s perception of
jurisdiction, such an apprehension by itself, would not justify the
reversal of the Macharia Ruling, a decision which, as we must take
judicial notice, will have established itself as a mark of certainty and
predictability in the law, and on the basis of which numbers of people
will have figured out their rights and expectations. In these
circumstances, in our view, public policy will not stand on the side of
reversal of precedent.
E. ORDERS
[78] Accordingly, we disallow the application.
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