Details have emerged indicating why Chief Justice David Maraga and other Supreme Court Judges missed the official opening of the 12th Parliament by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
According to Maraga's personal assistant, Mundia Muchiri, the CJ was not invited to the function. He, however, noted that maybe the invite was sent to the Judiciary, but none was delivered to Maraga's office.
"I can speak on good authority and say that there is no invite that was sent to the CJ unless it was sent generally to the Judiciary, which should not be the case.
"The Speaker should, as a matter of protocol, send the invite to the CJ, for if you do not invite the Chief Justice, then who else have you invited?" Muchiri told The Standard.
Other reports showed that some Supreme Court judges could have missed the sitting as they were busy writing the much-awaited judgment of the presidential petition.
The reports further noted that there was an official apology to State House explaining why the judges would not attend the President's address in the National assembly.
"They are under a lot of pressure to have the judgment ready. Considering that the event would take a whole day and they have to deliver on their promise, they could not attend. It is not a boycott," a source stated.
On Tuesday, the judges of the Supreme Court failed to attend President Kenyatta's address to the joint sitting of Parliament.
It is a tradition of Parliament that judges of the highest court attend the first sitting of a new National Assembly.
According to National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, the Judiciary had been invited and he did not know why the judges did not show up.
"I am reliably informed by the Clerk that they were invited. We always invite them, at least the Chief Justice and other judges for such functions. I do not know why they did not attend," said Muturi.
The National Assembly administration explained that they had already assigned six parliamentary orderlies to attend to the judges with two committee rooms and clearly marked for the Judiciary staff before they were ushered into the Speaker's gallery
The failure by the Judges to attend the sitting raised a lot of questions with Kenyans asking whether the Supreme Court heads had joined the Opposition who had announced that they would not attend the sitting.
