NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 27 – Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was removed from office through a process that fundamentally misread constitutional order, his lead lawyer, Paul Muite, told the High Court on Monday.
Appearing before a three-judge bench at the Milimani Law Courts, Muite mounted a sweeping defence of Gachagua, arguing that Parliament treated the impeachment as though Kenya operated under a parliamentary system, rather than the presidential model adopted under the 2010 Constitution.
Muite claimed that the National Assembly effectively subjected Gachagua to a vote of no confidence a mechanism common in Westminster-style democracies such as the United Kingdom and India, but one that has no place in Kenya’s constitutional framework.
“The people of Kenya chose a pure presidential system in 2010.It is not open to Parliament to remove a Deputy President simply because it has the numbers,” Muite submitted.
He argued that unlike a prime minister in a parliamentary system, who serves at the pleasure of legislators, a Deputy President derives his authority directly from the electorate and can only be removed on the strict grounds set out in the Constitution.
Gachagua, Muite noted, was elected alongside President William Ruto by millions of Kenyans, and that democratic mandate, he said, cannot be overturned on what he termed flimsy grounds.
In a presidential system, he argued, impeachment is an extraordinary remedy reserved only for the gravest constitutional breaches and should be used strictly as a measure of last resort.
“Why is that? Because in a presidential system, it is the people themselves, through a plurality of
their votes, who elect both the President and the Deputy President. The remedy should be limited
to only the gravest political wrongs. This is because the person to be removed from office came
to that office through a popular mandate,” Muite told the court.
He accused both the National Assembly and the Senate of lowering the constitutional threshold for impeachment, thereby trivialising what the Constitution envisages as a solemn and exceptional process.
Muite further argued that several allegations levelled against Gachagua could have been addressed through other legal mechanisms, including referral to independent statutory bodies, instead of resorting immediately to impeachment.
He maintained that impeachment should only be invoked where the alleged misconduct is so serious that it cannot wait for resolution through ordinary legal or electoral processes.
The court also heard that Gachagua is no longer seeking reinstatement as Deputy President. Instead, he is asking the court to quash the impeachment, award him the salary and benefits he would have earned for the remainder of his term, and grant damages for what he terms an unconstitutional removal from office.
“The quashing, if this court agrees with our submissions, the quashing of the unconstitutional impeachment. Number two, payment of the remuneration he would have otherwise earned, plus, of course, all the benefits as per the law,”Muite argued.