Senior Counsel Bar Snubs CJ Koome Over Deepening Judicial Grievances
NAIROBI, KENYA – In a move that signals a deepening rift within Kenya’s legal fraternity, the Senior Counsel Bar has officially boycotted a highly anticipated meeting with Chief Justice Martha Koome.
The sudden withdrawal from the dialogue highlights growing frustrations among the country’s most elite legal minds over the administration of justice and institutional friction.
The dispute centers on a planned consultative meeting that was meant to address systemic issues affecting legal practice.
However, the Senior Counsel Bar chose to snub the invitation, indicating that a formal seat at the table is meaningless if the underlying grievances of practitioners continue to be overlooked.
A Growing Rift
The decision to skip the meeting did not happen in a vacuum. Tensions between the leadership of the Judiciary and senior members of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) have been steadily escalating.
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Prominent senior counsels—including former LSK presidents—have increasingly voiced serious concerns regarding judicial inefficiencies, persistent delays in the issuance of rulings, and structural failures within the court registries.
The elite bar’s withdrawal is viewed by insiders as a tactical protest against what many see as a failure by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and the Office of the Chief Justice to firmly root out corruption and regularize administrative protocols.
Senior legal practitioners have continuously warned that the normalisation of corrupted processes and administrative gaps compromises the integrity of the constitutional right to access justice.
Points of Contention
Beyond administrative concerns, the legal community remains deeply fractured over recent high-profile actions taken by the apex court. Specifically, the Supreme Court’s controversial decision to ban certain prominent advocates from appearing before it has set off an alarm among practitioners. Many Senior Counsels view such bans as a dangerous precedent that threatens the independence of the bar and the very livelihood of practicing lawyers.
While Chief Justice Koome has historically defended the Judiciary’s integrity—frequently pushing back against external pressure from both social media and the Executive branch—the legal fraternity argues that internal accountability has stalled.
Rather than attending standard dialogue forums, which critics dismiss as performative, the Senior Counsel Bar is demanding concrete reforms and absolute transparency in how complaints against judicial officers are handled.
What Lies Ahead?
The snub leaves the Chief Justice in a precarious position as she tries to balance institutional reforms with a highly unified and rebellious bar. With the Senior Counsel Bar refusing to engage until core issues are tangibly addressed, the impasse threatens to disrupt regular channels of bench-and-bar diplomacy.
Legal analysts note that for a meaningful resolution to occur, the Judiciary will need to move past standard open-door invitations and offer structured, binding concessions that restore confidence among the nation’s top lawyers.
Until then, the silent protest by Kenya’s legal elite serves as a stark reminder of the fragile state of relations between those who globalize the law and those who interpret it from the bench.
The hearing of petition seeking removal of CJ Koome to proceed to a full trial – This broadcast outlines the broader legal and institutional challenges currently facing Chief Justice Martha Koome, providing crucial context to the ongoing friction between the bench and Kenya’s prominent legal professionals.
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