The Court Found the Constitution Was Violated and Then Allowed the Outcome to Stand: What the Gachagua Impeachment Judgment Means for the Justice System, the Right to Fair Administration, and What Comes Next
Kenya's High Court has delivered a judgment that upholds the impeachment of H.E. Rigathi Gachagua, the first Deputy President to be removed from office under the 2010 Constitution, while finding that the process which produced it, violated his constitutional right to a fair hearing. The court awarded constitutional damages of KShs. 50 million but declined to reverse the outcome, introducing a doctrine of constitutional finality that places the Senate's impeachment vote beyond judicial reversal regardless of procedural infirmity. It's finding that the National Assembly's public participation discharged the Senate's independent constitutional obligation, and its order directing Parliament to enact the statutory framework for Deputy Presidential removal it has failed to legislate in sixteen years, carries implications that reach well beyond the immediate parties. H.E. Gachagua has indicated his intention to appeal, and the question that will define that appeal is whether a doctrine of unreviewability can itself be reviewed, a question Kenyan jurisprudence has not previously been asked to answer.
