A High Court judge has opened up on contemplating suing former President Uhuru Kenyatta for defamation after he declined to appoint her and 13 others.
Asenath Ongeri was among officers nominated by the Judicial Service Commission - led by then Chief Justice Willy Mutunga - in 2015, to be appointed judges of the High Court.
But Uhuru refused to have them gazetted and sworn in, only saying they had “integrity issues that had not been resolved”.
No further explanation was provided.
“I didn’t anticipate what followed. The President refused to appoint all 14 nominated candidates for judgeship. I was among the 14 unfortunate ones,” she writes in her book The Making of a Judge.
However, after waiting, the 14 would be hurriedly summoned to State House for swearing in on May 14, 2015.
Ongeri says the reputation she had built through hard work had been soiled by Uhuru’s blanket pronouncement.
“Certainly, what the fourth President of the republic had done had amounted to defamation, for calling our characters into question and saying we had integrity issues. To this very day, nobody has told me what integrity issue I had had to have prompted the fourth President to cause us such humiliation,” Ongeri says in the book.
With the claim came rumours, which worried her. “I remembered the chilling rumor I had heard … that after the new constitution was promulgated, all judicial officers and judges were to be removed from office.”
Though her rights were violated, she writes, she chose to forgive.
“William Shakespeare once said that when you take away someone’s good name, you take away something that leaves the person poor but does not enrich you. I chose not to sue the fourth President. I forgave him instead.” Ongeri drew comfort from her conviction and clarity of conscience that she was not corrupt.
Justice Ongeri was admitted to the bar in 1988. She served as State Counsel from 1988 to 1989 before joining the judicial service as a District Magistrate II (Professional) in 1989, then rose to become a chief magistrate.
After waiting “for what had seemed like eternity”, Ongeri - who had been transferred to the Nyahururu Law Courts as chief magistrate - finally got the news of her appointment.
“I was parking my things as
my husband went to get a lorry
to carry my luggage. It is at this
point that a friend called. She addressed me in a very unusual way:
“Honorable Lady Justice Asenath
Ongeri!"