President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday formed a tribunal to investigate the conduct of Supreme Court judge Jackton Ojwang.
In a Special Gazette notice, Uhuru said the judge stands suspended pending the outcome of the tribunal.
Ojwang was born in 1950 in Migori county. He went to Homa Bay High School and sat his O Levels in 1968.
He then proceeded to Thika High School where he sat his A Level exams in 1970.
Ojwang earned his undergraduate degree in law at the University of Nairobi in 1974 and a Master’s at the same university in 1976.
He earned a PhD in comparative constitutional law at Downing College in 1981.
Ojwang worked as a lecturer and served as the Dean of the School of Law at the University of Nairobi from 2000 to 2003.
In September 2015, Ojwang received a Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi, having successfully defended his thesis titled, The Unity of the Constitution and the Common Law.
He became the first sitting Kenyan judge to receive a Doctor of Laws degree.
Ojwang’s judicial career started in September 1983 when he was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
Twenty years later, he joined the Judiciary in 2003, serving as a High Court judge in Nairobi and Mombasa until 2011.
In June 2012, Ojwang was among five judges nominated to the Supreme Court of Kenya by the Judicial Service Commission.
He was one of the six judges who dismissed the presidential election petition of March 30, 2013.
When Chief Justice Willy Mutunga’s tenure came to an end in June 2016, 10 people applied for the position. Ojwang was among them, but David Maraga was picked.
In the case that challenged Uhuru Kenyatta’s win in 2017 presidential election, Ojwang rendered a dissenting opinion alongside Justice Njoki Ndung’u, saying there was not enough evidence to meet the threshold to annul the election held on August 8, 2017.
Justice Ojwang is married to Prof Colleta Akinyi Suda, the Higher Education PS.
On March 13, the Judicial Service Commission began hearing petitions filed against 11 judges, including Ojwang.
Ojwang was invited by the JSC to defend himself against allegations involving a road leading to his home, allegedly tarmacked by the Migori county government. He however denied the allegations and said he would produce witnesses.
In a statement delivered by CJ Maraga, the JSC said it had strong evidence that Ojwang was involved in gross misconduct in a case involving Migori Governor Okoth Obado.
Obado dismissed the claims that he built a road to return a favour to Ojwang following a Sony Sugar belt case which the governor allegedly had an interest in.
The tribunal formed to probe Ojwang is chaired by Justice Alnashir Visram and the members are Justice (Rtd.) Festus Azangalala, Ambrose Weda, Andrew Bahati Mwamuye, Lucy Kambuni, Sylvia Wanjiku Muchiri and Amina Abdalla.