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Tag: Supreme Court Judges

  • Supreme Court backs President Ruto’s Healthcare Fund

    Supreme Court backs President Ruto’s Healthcare Fund

    In a notable decision, the Kenyan Court of Appeal has overturned a previous ban and given the green light to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), a contentious healthcare insurance levy championed by President William Ruto.

    The SHIF aims to provide affordable healthcare to all Kenyans but has faced widespread criticism, with many viewing it as a new tax that could exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis, leading to protests last year.

    The High Court had halted the SHIF’s rollout in November following a petition by businessman Joseph Enock Aura, challenging certain aspects of the scheme.

    The suspension, along with the halting of a controversial housing levy, prompted President Ruto to accuse unnamed judges of corruption and claim that the judiciary was colluding with the opposition to hinder government projects, triggering protests from lawyers.

    Replacing the decades-old National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), which has suffered significant losses to corruption, the SHIF has undergone legal scrutiny.

    The three-judge bench, while lifting the ban, suspended sections requiring mandatory registration to the scheme, citing concerns about the potential harm to the health rights of citizens not involved in the litigation.

    President Ruto has taken a series of unpopular measures since he took office in 2022

    All workers are expected to contribute 2.75% of their salaries towards the new health fund.

    The new law does not address what happens when individuals cannot afford contributions but President Ruto said his government would pay for those unable.

    Critics of the new health plan say the 2.75% deduction is a huge increase on what they paid to the NHIF, coming on top of the recent rise in fuel prices and living costs.

    Some also fear that the new social healthcare body will spend most of the collected funds on administrative expenses like the current NHIF, leaving few resources for direct healthcare costs.

    In June last year, Mr Ruto signed the Finance Act, another unpopular piece of legislation that introduced a 1.5% housing levy payable by both employers and employees.

    The government says it seeks to provide affordable housing to low income earners. The levy has also been challenged in court.

  • Presidential appointments now a tool for giving friends and party members jobs – Professor Baffuor Agyeman-Duah

    Presidential appointments now a tool for giving friends and party members jobs – Professor Baffuor Agyeman-Duah

    A constitutional revision regarding the President’s authority to designate ministers of state has been demanded by Professor Baffuor Agyeman-Duah, the Chief Executive Officer of the John Kufuor Foundation.

    According to him, the constitution gives too much power to the executive which makes it difficult for the other arms of government to perform their duties effectively.

    This, he said, has translated into the appointment of party loyalists to the helm of affairs.

    He said increasingly, presidential appointments have become a means to create jobs for party members, friends and family, which is at the root of recent controversies over the number of ministers, Supreme Court judges, directors, and CEOs and their deputies of State.      

    Professor Aygeman-Duah who was making a contribution to discussions during the fourth edition of Joy – Change Speakers Series, on Joy FM’s Newsfile programme, explained that the 1992 constitution vests so much power in the executive that the other two arms of government seem subdued.

    He said the excess power of the executive has weakened the legislature in holding them in check.

    “The Constitution gives almost limitless discretionary and appointing powers to the president and the power to appoint goes way beyond senior civil servants and heads of state agencies to district assembly members, even appointments to institutions classified by the constitution as independent are to be made by the president who is partisan yet we expect these bodies to be neutral.

    “So apart from the so-called independent body, the constitution places no limits on numbers and levels to be appointed. This loophole and the discretion to create ministries and agencies at will enables self -aggrandising presidents to indulge in creating and dishing out positions with or without justification and unmindful of the burden on the taxpayer,” he said on Saturday.

    He stressed the need for a constitutional amendment.

    “The foregoing cases of constitutional lapses are among the reason why strong voices have emerged including mine for reviewing the 1992 Constitution,” he added.

  • Approve Justices Yao Gaewu, George Koomson for Supreme Court – Akufo-Addo to Parliament

    President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged the Appointments Committee of Parliament to play its patriotic duties by approving his Supreme Court justice nominees; Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu and Justice George Kingsley Koomson.

    The two justices were among four justices nominated by the president in July 2022 for elevation to the country’s apex court.

    They were nominated alongside Justices Frances Barbara Ackah-Yensu and Samuel Kwame Adibo Asiedu, both previously being Court of Appeal justices who were approved by Parliament’s Appointments Committee before the House went on the Christmas recess, leaving the fate of justices Gaewu and Koomson on the balance.

    President Akufo-Addo made the appeal during the swearing-in of Justices Ackah-Yensu and Adibo Asiedu at the Presidency on December 28, 2022.

    Addressing the importance and the need for the occasion, the president said, “I perform the most important act of the administration of the third arm of government which is the swearing into Office of two Justices of the Supreme Court and I refer to Justice Frances Barbara Ackah-Yensu and Justice Samuel Kwame Adibo Asiedu who would be appointed to succeed two justices of the Supreme Court; the late Justice Samuel Marful-Sau who passed away on August 10, 2021, and Justice Yaw Apaw who retired on August 2, 2021.”

    During the swearing-in which is in accordance with the stringent details of Article 144 Clause 2 of the Constitution of Ghana, the president reiterated his confidence in the remaining two nominees saying they were rigorously selected through the Judicial Council and in consultation with the Council of State and therefore urged Parliament to have them approved.

    “I, therefore, await Parliament’s approval of the two remaining nominees; Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu and Justice George Kingsley Koomson to fill the vacancies created as a result of the retirement of Justice Clemence Honyenuga which took place on September 24, 2022, and Justice Agnes Dordzie who retired on October 2, 2022.”

    Source: Citinews

  • Appointment Committee to consider four Supreme Court nominees on Tuesday, October 18

    The Appointment Commitee of Parliament will on Tuesday, October 18, consider four persons nominated by the President for appointments as Supreme Court Judges.

    A statement issued by the Public Affairs Directorate of Parliament said the Justices to be considered are Justice Barbara Frances Ackah-Yensu, Justice of the Court of Appeal; Mr Justice George Kingsley Koomson, Justice of the Court of Appeal; Mr Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu, Justice of the Court of Appeal; and Mr Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu, Justice of the High Court.

    Source: GNA