The marbled corridors of the Milimani High Court in Nairobi, where the air hangs heavy with the scent of polished wood and whispered legal maneuvers, fell into a hush on November 4, 2025, as Justice Lawrence Mugambi delivered a verdict that rippled through Kenya's fractious political waters. In a 78-page ruling laced with meticulous dissections of constitutional clauses and evidentiary threads, the judge dismantled a petition challenging the removal of former Attorney General Justin Muturi, affirming that his exit was voluntary and lawful. More pointedly, Mugambi upheld President William Ruto's nomination and subsequent appointment of Dorcas Oduor as the new guardian of the state's legal arsenal, finding no scintilla of unconstitutionality in the process. "The petitioners have failed to discharge the burden of proof required to upend the presumption of validity that attaches to executive actions," Mugambi intoned from the bench, his gavel's sharp crack punctuating the finality like a door slamming on a contentious chapter. "The evidence before this court, including the resignation letter and gazette notice, stands unassailable. Mr. Muturi vacated office through his own volition, not coercion or caprice." Justin Muturi.png1.86 MB
The case, Constitutional Petition No. E123 of 2024, had simmered since its filing on July 15, 2024, by a consortium of seven citizens led by Nakuru-based physician Dr. Magare Gikenyi, a vocal critic of executive overreach whose activism traced back to the 2017 election disputes. Joined by human rights defenders, academics, and activists, the group had hurled a gauntlet at the heart of Ruto's administration, arguing that Muturi's ouster—announced via a terse presidential press release on July 11, 2024—flouted Article 156 of the Constitution, which vests the Attorney General's tenure in security of the person, removable only for inability, gross misconduct, or bankruptcy. "The President's fiat, cloaked as a cabinet reshuffle, was nothing short of a purge without due process," Gikenyi had argued in her opening submissions on September 30, 2024, her voice steady amid the courtroom's tension. "Article 47 demands fair administrative action; here, we have none— no hearing, no grounds, just a press release that treats the AG's office like a disposable memo." The petition sought not only Muturi's reinstatement but an injunction halting Oduor's vetting, portraying her ascension as tainted fruit from a poisoned tree.
Muturi's tenure as AG, spanning October 2022 to July 2024, had been a whirlwind of legal tightrope walks and high-stakes advisories that often thrust him into the crosshairs of public scrutiny. A seasoned parliamentary hand—Speaker of the National Assembly from 2013 to 2022—Muturi brought to the AG's chambers a docket-weary gravitas, his bow-tied silhouette a fixture at state functions and Senate hearings. He had shepherded the Finance Act 2023 through constitutional gauntlets, defended the housing levy amid LSK broadsides, and opined on the 2024 cabinet sackings that birthed 21 new faces. Yet, fissures emerged: his April 2024 advisory on state corporation appointments, urging adherence to SCAC guidelines, irked Ruto allies like Public Service CS Moses Kuria, who branded it "bureaucratic sabotage." Whispers of discord crescendoed in June, when Muturi penned a missive excusing himself from cabinet meetings over unresolved abductions and extrajudicial killings, a stance that distanced him from the inner sanctum. "I cannot in good conscience deliberate while shadows of impunity loom," he confided to close aides, his words leaking into the press like ink from a cracked quill.
The July 11 press release, framed as a "recalibration for efficiency," shuffled Muturi to the Public Service docket—a lateral move that petitioners decried as de facto dismissal, stripping him of the AG's independence enshrined in Article 156(5). Oduor, a 56-year-old litigator with three decades at the AG's chambers and a stint as deputy AG under Githu Muigai, emerged as the nominee on July 25, her parliamentary vetting a spectacle of probing questions on corruption probes and devolution tussles. "My mandate is to serve the Constitution, not personalities," Oduor had asserted during her August 1 appearance before the National Assembly's Justice Committee, her measured responses earning nods from even skeptical Azimio MPs like Junet Mohamed. Sworn in on August 5 amid fanfare at State House, she inherited a docket roiling with Finance Bill 2024 challenges and IEBC reconstitution suits, her first advisory a green light for the Social Health Authority's digital rollout.
Justice Mugambi's chamber, a sanctum of leather-bound tomes and flickering fluorescent lights, had shepherded the petition through procedural mazes since its certification as urgent in July 2024. The judge, a 62-year-old veteran of constitutional benches whose rulings on the 2022 election petitions had earned him both acclaim and enmity, consolidated related suits—including one by lawyer Mwaniki Gachagua seeking to halt Oduor's recruitment—in a bid for judicial economy. Hearings spanned May to October 2025, with state counsel Emmanuel Bitta unveiling Muturi's resignation letter on May 13, a one-page epistle dated July 11, 2024, addressed to Ruto and received the same day. "I hereby tender my resignation from the office of Attorney General, effective immediately, in the interest of national service and personal reflection," the document read, its authenticity buttressed by gazette notice No. 7890. "This was no forced exit; Mr. Muturi chose his path, and the President respected it," Bitta argued, his submissions laced with precedents from the 2018 Uhuru-Ruto fallout. Petitioners countered with affidavits alleging coercion—anonymous tips of "palace intrigue" and a "chilling effect" on dissent—but Mugambi deemed them speculative. "Hearsay and conjecture do not suffice where the paper trail speaks volumes," he noted, dismissing claims of falsified documents as "unsubstantiated phantoms."
The ruling's gavel fell at 11:47 a.m., with Mugambi's prose a scalpel dissecting the constitutional anatomy. He affirmed that Article 156 permits voluntary resignation, untrammeled by removal strictures, and that Ruto's acceptance—formalized via gazette—complied with Section 12 of the Office of the Attorney General Act. On Oduor's appointment, he lauded the vetting's transparency: "The parliamentary process, rigorous and public, inoculated against irregularity." No evidence of bad faith surfaced, he ruled, quashing contempt motions against the presidency. "The court is loath to intervene where executive discretion aligns with constitutional fidelity," Mugambi concluded, his words a bulwark for Ruto's reshuffle prerogative amid ongoing cabinet teardowns.
Reactions cascaded like a Rift Valley flash flood. In the corridors outside Courtroom 17, Gikenyi, her face a mask of resolve etched with disappointment, addressed a scrum of reporters. "This ruling entrenches a presidency unbound by process, a dangerous precedent for every officeholder," she stated, her voice carrying the timbre of a clinician diagnosing a systemic malaise. "We respect the bench, but appeal beckons—Article 164 demands scrutiny." Allies like Katiba Institute's executive director, Caiphas Soi, echoed the lament: "Muturi's 'resignation' smells of expediency; true independence died today." Oduor, emerging from a side chamber where she had observed proceedings incognito, offered a measured riposte. "Justice served the rule of law; now, my focus sharpens on advising with impartiality, shielding the Constitution from caprice," she told the press pool, her briefcase clutched like a shield. Ruto, touring a Mombasa port expansion hours later, hailed the verdict in a tweet: "The courts affirm constitutional order; forward we march, with Dorcas at the legal helm."
Muturi himself, now ensconced in the Public Service CS role—a portfolio he has navigated with quiet competence, rolling out digitization drives for civil servant payrolls—maintained a sphinx-like silence post-ruling. Sources close to him, sipping tea in his Karen residence, intimated a man unbowed but reflective. "Justin saw the letter as a graceful off-ramp, not a rout," one confidant shared. "He advised on tough calls—the housing levy, the IEBC deadlock—and if that invited friction, so be it." His brief AG stint, bookended by Githu Muigai's erudition and Oduor's procedural prowess, left a mixed ledger: praised by LSK's Nelson Havi for "competent court engagements," critiqued by Eric Theuri for public advisories that "bent toward expediency." In a rare post-shuffle interview with a local daily in September 2024, Muturi had demurred on specifics: "The AG's chair is a hot seat; I warmed it with integrity, and that's my measure."
The verdict's tendrils extend to Kenya's constitutional edifice, a document birthed in 2010 to tame executive whim. Article 156's safeguards—tenure akin to judges, removal via parliamentary probe—were forged in the ashes of Moi-era purges, where AGs like Amos Wako served as regime mouthpieces. Mugambi's ruling reinforces presidential latitude in "recalibrations," a term Ruto coined for his July 2024 sack-and-rehire spree that birthed 21 new CSs amid Gen Z protests. Critics, from Azimio's James Orengo to ICJ Kenya's executive director, decry a slippery slope: "If resignation can mask removal, what's left of security of tenure?" Orengo thundered in a Senate speech on November 5. Yet, defenders like State Law Office director Walter Amoko parry: "The Constitution breathes flexibility; rigid literalism stifles governance." Oduor's docket, now unclouded, pivots to pressing fronts: the Supreme Court's pending nod on the 2027 election timeline, anti-corruption prosecutions stalling in the Milimani anti-graft court, and advisories on the Finance Bill 2025's tax hikes.
Broader implications lap at devolution's shores. Muturi's shuffle to Public Service—overseeing 1.2 million civil servants and county coordination—has seen him champion the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee, mediating Nairobi-Machakos water spats. Oduor, stepping into his shoes, inherits a legal bureaucracy of 1,500 officers, her deputy AG role honing skills in federalism tussles like the 2024 revenue-sharing suit. "Dorcas brings continuity with fresh vigor—her chambers' track record on devolved funds is sterling," Amoko noted in a post-ruling briefing. For petitioners, the loss stings as a microcosm of judicial conservatism: Mugambi's bench, lauded for 2022's election scrutiny, here tilts toward deference, echoing rulings upholding Ruto's housing levy amid LSK appeals.
As the courtroom emptied, sunlight slanting through clerestory windows like judgment's own ray, Gikenyi gathered her papers, her resolve unyielding. "We fight not for Muturi alone, but for the Constitution's spine," she told a young paralegal, her eyes on the horizon where Nairobi's skyline pierced the clouds. Oduor, retreating to her Sheria House office, pored over briefs on the SHA rollout, her phone buzzing with congratulations from Ruto's inner circle. In the quiet interstices of power, the ruling settles like dust on a ledger—Muturi's chapter closed, Oduor's opened, the republic's legal compass recalibrated. For Kenya, where constitutions are living parchments etched in struggle, this verdict whispers of equilibrium: executive bold, judiciary vigilant, the dance of democracy enduring, one gavel at a time.
The saga's prelude, in July 2024's sweltering heat, had unfolded amid Ruto's cabinet purge—a response to June's Gen Z uprising that torched Parliament and felled 39 lives. The July 11 missive, read by State House spokesperson Hussein Mohamed at a 3 p.m. briefing, listed 21 sackings, including CSs like Alice Wahome and nominees like Rebecca Miano. Muturi's "reassignment" to Public Service, announced sans fanfare, sparked immediate ripples: LSK's Fred Ojiambo decried it as "demotion by decree," while Katiba Institute's Soi filed an amicus brief decrying "pleasure doctrine's ghost." Gikenyi's petition, lodged four days later, ballooned with 12 affidavits from activists like Eliud Matindi, who alleged "pre-signed resignation" forgery—a claim Mugambi eviscerated for want of forensics.
Hearings, reconvened in May 2025 after stays sought by the state, devolved into evidentiary duels. Bitta's arsenal— the July 11 letter, witnessed by two deputies; gazette proof of vacancy; Oduor's vetting transcripts—outflanked petitioners' hearsay. "No whistleblower testimony, no digital trails of coercion," Mugambi observed, citing the Evidence Act's hearsay bar. Gachagua's parallel suit, consolidated in September 2024, fared no better: his "minority protection" plea for Muturi's Mbeere roots was dismissed as "ethnic essentialism untethered to law." Oduor's intervenors, including the LSK as amicus, urged closure: "The office demands continuity; paralysis serves no public good," urged LSK's Theuri in written submissions.
Post-ruling, appeals loom: Gikenyi's team eyes the Court of Appeal by November 18, invoking Article 164's appellate mandate. "This isn't defeat; it's due diligence," Soi affirmed, filing notices amid media flashes. Ruto, addressing a Kisii harambee on November 5, wove the verdict into his narrative: "Courts affirm our constitutional fidelity; with Dorcas steering legal waters, we navigate to prosperity." Oduor, in her first post-ruling address at the LSK annual gala on November 6, pledged bridge-building: "To skeptics and supporters alike, my door—and the law's—stands open." Muturi, from his Jogoo House perch, issued a terse statement: "The judiciary has spoken; service continues, unmarred."
In Kenya's constitutional continuum—from the 2010 dispensation's checks to Ruto's "recalibration" ethos—this ruling recalibrates the scales. It shields executive agility in reshuffles, a balm for Ruto's July 2024 reboot that stabilized a teetering cabinet. Yet, it cautions: future ousters must don resignation's cloak or face parliamentary inquisition. For Oduor, the green light illuminates priorities: fast-tracking the IEBC reconstitution amid 2027 murmurs, advising on the 2025 budget's Sh3.6 trillion ambitions, and mending AG-LSK rifts frayed by housing levy suits. "Integrity is the AG's lodestar; I'll orbit it unwaveringly," she vowed to her deputies, blueprints for digital case management unrolled across her desk.
As November's mists cloak the Aberdares, the Milimani verdict settles into jurisprudence's annals—a footnote in Muturi's eclectic resume, a launchpad for Oduor's stewardship. Gikenyi, back in Nakuru's clinics, charts her appeal with the fervor of a diagnostician: "The Constitution heals through challenge; we've only begun the prescription." In the republic's restless rhythm, where power pivots on precedents, this dismissal endures as dialectic: removal or resignation? Lawful or lamentable? The gavel's echo lingers, inviting the next verse in Kenya's unending constitutional sonata.
