| dc.description.abstract | The role of the judiciary in safeguarding and entrenching the rule of law cannot be gainsaid. In countries where the judiciary is not independent or competent, human rights are not respected and the law is not what the government or those in power rule by. In Kenya, the judiciary has over the years suffered from an acute lack of public confidence. This is mainly due to the perceived lack of independence and the corruption and incompetence of the staff who man it. The post election violence that was witnessed in Kenya after the 2007 General Elections has largely been blamed on the lack of confidence in the judiciary as the ultimate arbiter of disputes in general and electoral contestations in particular.
The adoption of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 was one of the reform initiatives agreed upon to deal with most of the underlying causes of the post election violence. The Constitution made radical stipulations to deal with the lack of public confidence in the judiciary. Of importance, the Constitution required that all judges and magistrates holding office on the effective date of the Constitution would have to be vetted to determine their suitability to continue to serve.
This thesis analyses the vetting process as stipulated both in the Constitution and the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Act, 2011. The analysis is focused on determining whether the vetting process will deal with three main maladies that have bedeviled the judiciary in the past: corruption, lack of independence and incompetence.
Ultimately, the thesis seeks to find out whether the vetting process will lead to the change in public perception about the judiciary.
In the final analysis, it has been concluded that the vetting process will largely positively change the public perception about the judiciary in the three areas identified above. However, other institutional changes have to be undertaken to augment the gains that will have been attained at the end of the vetting process. | en_US |
