President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza coalition will challenge the High Court decision that declared the appointment of the 50 Chief Administrative Secretaries (CASs) unconstitutional.
Speaking on Tuesday, July 4, former nominated MP Wilson Sossion expressed his frustration claiming that the High Court decision delivered by judges Kanyi Kimondo, Hedwig Ong’udi and Aleem Visram contradicted an earlier decision by the Employment and Labour Relations Court.
Sossion cited the judgement by the Employment and Labour Relations Court which ruled that creation of the CAS position was constitutional. The former nominated MP was among the 50 CAS’s appointed by Ruto. He revealed that Kenya Kwanza was contemplating challenging the verdict using the Employment Court’s decision.
“A solid judgement at the Employment and Labour Relations Court declared the positions constitutional. So we are in a strange situation where we have contradictory judgements from courts of equal jurisdiction,” Sossion stated.
“The Employment and Labour Relations Court found the positions constitutional and the advertisement also constitutional and gave the green light,” he added.
Sossion dismissed the High Court’s observation that participation in creating the CAS post was only conducted for 23 appointees, and the creation of the additional 27 posts did not adhere to the constitutional requirement of public participation.
He argued that PSC followed all the prescribed legislation before President William Ruto appointed them to assume various roles. The former Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General further argued that the position was necessary to help President Ruto fulfill his campaign pledges.
“These are positions created by the Public Service Commission. It went ahead to advertise, and Kenyans applied; I’m one of the Kenyans who applied,” he stated.
Labour Court Verdict
On February 16, Justice Monica Mburu ruled that the Public Service Commission followed due process. The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) had moved to court to challenge the appointment of the Chief Administrative Secretaries.
LSK argued that the lack of clarity on the intended office of CAS denies the public the opportunity to comment on the possibility of the duplicity of roles between the Principal Secretary and the Chief Administrative Secretary.
However, Justice Mburu established that the Public Service Commission followed due process.
What High Court Said
The High Court maintained that proper public participation was not conducted before the appointment of the 50 CASs.
“Whereas there was some reasonable public participation on the first complement of 23 CASs, there was no such participation regarding the additional 27 CASs. The entire complement of the 50 CASs is unconstitutional,” the three-bench judge stated.
The positions of CAS in every Ministry was created by former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018. However, in April 2021, High Court Judge Antony Mrima ruled that creating the CAS position was unconstitutional.
More advice to Ruto
Dagoretti North MP Beatrice Elachi argued that President Ruto erred in the appointments by using the name CASs. She argued that the positions were recognised in the constitution as advisors with full perks commensurate to those entitled to CSs.
She, however, advised Kenya Kwanza to verify other court decisions delivered on the CAS position before lodging an appeal at the Court of Appeal.
“I think where the government went wrong was to call it CASs because these are positions that have been there but under different names of advisors, and it has worked for many years,” she stated.
However, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei had called out the Judiciary terming the institution rogue.
