Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Kenya justice minister resigns citing need for judicial reform

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Kenyan Justice Minister Martha Karua resigned Monday from the ruling coalition, claiming that the government had thwarted much needed judiciary reforms by appointing judges without her knowledge. Karua, the leader of the Narc-Kenya party and an outspoken critic of the government of President Mwai Kibaki, is said to have tendered her resignation despite pleas from party officials to stay on. Karua's move is widely seen as an attempt to position herself for a run at the presidency in 2012. Shortly after Karua's resignation, medical services assistant minister Danson Mungatana, the second-highest Narc-Kenya minister, also resigned in solidarity. Karua's resignation comes just after power-sharing negotiations appear to have broken down between Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement of Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The three parties, PNU, Orange Demoratic Party, and Narc-Kenya had come to a power-sharing agreement in 2008 after a violence-plagued election in 2007 that resulted in the death of more than 1,000 people. In March, the Kenyan parliament delayed voting over a constitutional amendment to form a special tribunal to investigate the 2007 violence. Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who mediated the power-sharing deal among the warring factions, gave Kenya until May to form a tribunal to investigate the violence before referring the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 07, 2009 (boomark / email).