Justice and Legal Affairs Committee Vets Presidential Nominee For the Position of Director of Public Prosecutions
The Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chaired by Hon. George Murugara (Tharaka) has vetted Mr. Renson Mulele Ingonga, the Presidential nominee for position of Director of Public Prosecution.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Mulele told the Members that if approved as the next DPP, he is committed to pursuing a three-fold agenda which includes; building a people centred prosecution service, creating innovative prosecution framework and positioning prosecutions as an enabler of National development.
During the session, the Committee Members sought to know how Mr. Mulele was going to handle the recent trend of high profile cases filed and started long time ago being withdrawn for alleged lack of evidence.
“Recently a number of high profile cases already in court have been withdrawn for lack of evidence and for being politically instigated, if approved as the next DPP, what are you going to do to stop this?,” Hon. Murugara asked.
In his response, the nominee told the Members that the power of the DPP to withdraw a court case is anchored in law and that the court first verify if the reasons given for seeking withdrawal of a case are valid or not.
He further argued that the reason why the DPP makes applications for withdrawal of cases is to save public their money in scenarios where it is discovered that there’s no enough evidence to proceed with a particular case, assuring the committee that in his tenure if approved, there will be no political interference since he will be guided by the rule of law in execution of his duties.
“The mandate of DPP is clear. The office institutionalize any criminal proceedings other than in court marshal. It also has power to withdraw a case before court for a valid reason,” Mr. Mulele told the Committee.
The Committee also wanted to know how the nominee will ensure there will be no fallout between his office and the office of Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) as witnessed between the immediate former DCI and DPP bosses, George Kinoti and Noordin Haji respectively.
While responding to the Members concern, the nominee attributed the previous witnessed fallout to lack of understanding of specific mandates by the two institutions. He therefore, assured the committee that once in office he will sit with the DCI office and distinguish the mandate of each institution.
After the vetting exercise, the Committee is now going to consider and deliberate on the matter before proceeding to make a decision that will see the nominee given a nod to assume office or not.
Post Author
