High Court Judge George Odunga showcased his poetic prowess in delivering a ruling in a case of a love affair gone wrong.
His ruling in the case of Republic versus Anthony Muema Mutisya (Machakos HCCR 38/2011), the judge dispensed good counsel to young men and women on relationships.
“He (boyfriend) or she (girlfriend) has the right to say no at any stage of the relationship and where according to her, she has seen the light whether before embarking on the journey or in the course of the journey to Damascus, and feels that you are not the rib that was meant for him or her, you must accept the decision and move on however painful it might be,” he started.
He advised men facing rejection to use the art of persuasion to try and change their lover’s mind and avoid resorting to violence or detaining them.
“Instead, what one can do to avoid harming others through violence is to sanitise oneself from the temptation to cause harm to a person who finds his/her company unwelcome and to keep social distance until such a time that he/she has had their passion temperature normalised or has vaccinated themself against such temptations,” he ruled.
In the case, former police officer Anthony Muema Mutisya had been convicted of burning a house where he suspected his colleague and partner Mary Nyakio Mwangi were together.
According to court documents, he had suspected that Nyakio was having an affair and sneaked into Mulala Administration Police Camp in June 2011 during the night and set the house on fire.
“He demanded that she put on lights to see if indeed there was no other man in the house and she switched on the torch and directed it to her bed. There was no other man, but the appellant insisted that he had come to finish her and the child,” the court was told.
Mustisya was convicted of attempted murder of his partner and murder of their child who died in the fire.
He appealed on the basis that the trial judge made a ruling based on one identifying witness yet the crime happened in the dark.
“The learned trial judge erred in fact and in law in convicting the appellant while replying [sic] on the evidence of a single identifying witness when the circumstances were not favourable for a positive identification,” the defence lawyer argued.
The lawyer claimed that during the time when the crime took place, Mutisya was at his duty station far away at Ukwala in the former Nyanza Province.
