The High Court has temporarily stopped any planned auction of a 27-acre piece of land property linked to former Cabinet Minister Raphael Tuju in Karen.
In a court ruling on Wednesday, May 6, Justice Josephine Mong'are ruled that the order would stay in place until June 24, when the case will be heard.
The case is part of an ongoing dispute between Tuju and the East African Development Bank (EADB) over the Karen property.
The court order was issued after Tuju's lawyer, Paul Nyamodi, filed the application seeking to stop the auction of the property by Garam Investments Auctioneers.
Nyamodi accused the auctioneers of interfering with tenants occupying the property.
In April 2024, the court issued an order barring any sale or transfer of Tuju’s property as part of an ongoing legal battle with East African Development Bank and Garam Investments Auctioneers over a disputed loan. The order was then extended to November 20, 2024, and then to February 6 for the third hearing.
On March 22, Raphael Tuju wrote a letter to Chief Justice Martha Koome, expressing deep concerns over what he describes as "outrageous rulings" by five Supreme Court judges in the ongoing legal battle involving a bank and a piece of land in Karen.
Tuju drew a stark comparison between the current situation in Kenya and the infamous 1857 US Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott case, which upheld slavery and contributed to the American Civil War.
He warned that an irresponsible judiciary can have catastrophic consequences for a nation, especially one as fragile as Kenya, which he describes as a "geographical phenomenon" rather than a cohesive nation-state.
Tuju claimed that the judges ruled his property could be auctioned, with the possibility of compensation if he later won the case, a precedent he describes as both immoral and unprecedented.
"The law cannot be the foundation of morality," Tuju writes; "it is the other way round, your Honour. Morality is the foundation of good law."
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has become a focal point in this saga, with Tuju accusing the five Supreme Court judges of attempting to undermine its authority.
He claimed that the judges have sought to stop proceedings at the JSC, where he has lodged complaints against them, and have even gone as far as recusing themselves from the case in what he describes as an unprecedented move in Commonwealth jurisprudence.
