Four petitioners in the consolidated petitions before the High Court challenging Former DP Rigathi Gachagua''s impeachment, have moved to the
Court of Appeal seeking to set aside the High Court’s decision to decline a request
for judges’ recusal.
David Mathenge, Peter Gichobi Kamotho, Muthoni Mwangi, Clement Muchiri Muriuki and Edwin Munene Kariuki filed a joint appeal through Njindo Matiba Advocates, on January 18, 2025, hoping to set aside the decision of the High Court bench (Justices Eric Ogola, Freda Mugambi, and Anthony Mrima) refusing to recuse itself.
They argue that the High Court Justices erred in fact and law by refusing to recuse themselves despite demonstrated actual and apparent bias.
They said Mrima failed to disclose a long-standing friendship with the Senate Speaker, Amason Kingi.
He further argues that Kingi attended Justice Mrima's wedding and gifted him, evidencing the close relationship
“Supreme Court precedent establishes that close relationships between judges and parties to proceedings, including participation in personal events like weddings, are grounds for recusal due to perceived bias,” they said.
On October 25, 2024, the High Court declined Gachagua’s request for judges’ recusal from his impeachment case.
Mugambi, Ogola, and Mrima ruled they would continue to hear the case, allowing Gachagua the right to appeal their decision.
“The applications for recusal are hereby disallowed. The petitioners are hereby granted leave to file and serve amended petitions, if need be, within five days of this order,” said Ogola.
In the appeal, the petitioners said the learned judges fundamentally erred in law in purporting to raise the burden of proof in recusal applications so high as to defeat recusal applications “even where real and apparent bias is demonstrated, thus permitting judges to decline to recuse themselves in the face of real and apparent bias.”
“The learned Judges erred in fact and in law in holding that a longstanding relationship between Justice Antony Mrima and the Speaker of the Senate did not exist while evidence presented by the Applicants seeking recusal showed that the Speaker of the Senate wrote.”
His prayer is that the ruling of Justice Ogola, Mrima and Mugambi rendered in Milimani High Court be set aside and the same be substituted by the decision of the Court of Appeal.
