The Court Has Spoken: Justice Hellen Wasilwa Was Right, And The Attacks On Her Integrity Were Unfair

There are moments when the law does more than settle a dispute. It restores a name. It places the truth back where noise had tried to bury it. It reminds a country that a judge is not corrupt merely because a powerful voice dislikes her ruling, and that judicial accountability must never be converted into public humiliation, political theatre or reputational punishment. The Court of Appeal decision in Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) & 4 others v Tea Hotels Limited & 4 others, Civil Appeal E023 and E028 of 2022 (Consolidated), delivered on 8 May 2026, must therefore be read not only as an appellate judgment, but also as a public correction. Justice Hellen Wasilwa made a ruling. She was attacked for it. She was dragged through a process that, on the account now before the public, stripped away the dignity owed to a judicial officer. Then the Court of Appeal looked at the same legal issue and stood with her reasoning.

The public needs to understand the matter clearly. The dispute arose from Kericho ELRC Cause No. 10 of 2016, an employment and labour matter involving workers and Tea Hotel. Justice Wasilwa, sitting in the Employment and Labour Relations Court, made a ruling on 18 January 2022 concerning execution of a decree and the sale and transfer of property. Those unhappy with that ruling did what the law allows them to do: they appealed. That is how a constitutional democracy works. Judges decide. Parties who disagree appeal. Appellate courts correct errors where errors exist. What should never happen is that a judge is personally branded corrupt simply because one side believes the judge should have decided differently.

Nelson Havi, a senior lawyer and former President of the Law Society of Kenya, has publicly accused Justice Wasilwa of corruption because of this ruling. That accusation was not a small matter. To call a judge corrupt is to question the heart of her oath, the foundation of her office, and the public confidence that allows courts to function. Such a claim must rest on clear evidence of bribery, bad faith, improper influence or deliberate abuse of office. It cannot be built on anger over a judgment. It cannot be sustained by repetition. It cannot survive merely because the person making it has a title, a platform, a following or a loud voice.

The Court of Appeal has now exposed the weakness of that attack. The appellate court did not treat Justice Wasilwa’s ruling as the work of a rogue judge. It did not find that she had acted outside the basic logic of the law. It did not pronounce that her decision was some scandalous departure from justice. Instead, the Court of Appeal dismissed the consolidated appeals and upheld the substance of her decision. In simple language, the higher court found that the legal complaints against her ruling did not carry the day. The very ruling that had been used to drag her name through the mud was tested by appellate judges and found to stand.

That is the point Kenyans must not miss. The Court of Appeal was not sitting as a public relations body. It was not there to defend a colleague. It was there to apply the law. And after applying the law, it affirmed the central point Justice Wasilwa had taken: the matter before her was tied to execution of an Employment and Labour Relations Court decree, and the process by which the property was sold was legally defective. The appellate court identified serious problems with the execution process, including the absence of a properly extracted decree capable of execution and the troubling fact that the property listed for execution was not the same property that was ultimately sold. These were not imaginary issues. They were real legal defects. They were exactly the sort of defects a judge is expected to confront.

This is why the campaign against Justice Wasilwa was unfair. A judge who stops a defective process is not corrupt merely because someone benefited from the defect. A judge who asks whether the correct property was attached and sold is not corrupt merely because a purchaser is inconvenienced. A judge who examines whether the law on execution was followed is not corrupt merely because the outcome angers a powerful advocate. That is the work of judging. It is not misconduct. It is not incompetence. It is not corruption. It is the judge doing what the Constitution and the law demand.

The most disturbing part is what happened before the Judicial Service Commission. According to the account now placed in the public domain, Justice Wasilwa was subjected to deeply humiliating proceedings and compelled to justify a ruling that was already under appeal. That alone raises a serious institutional question. Why should a judge be forced to defend the reasoning of a live judicial decision before a disciplinary body while the appellate process is still alive? If every disputed ruling can be converted into a disciplinary complaint before the appeal is heard, then judicial independence becomes a slogan without muscle. Judges will no longer decide according to law; they will decide while looking over their shoulders, wondering which angry litigant or advocate will drag them before the JSC next.

The humiliation, as described, went beyond the demand for an explanation. She was allegedly shouted at, openly demeaned, forced to testify, forced to call witnesses, and repeatedly stopped from questioning witnesses on matters that could have helped demonstrate her innocence. If that description is accurate, then the process was not a dignified inquiry. It was an institutional failure. It looked less like a constitutional commission calmly testing a complaint and more like senior students bullying a junior. A judge is not above accountability, but accountability without fairness becomes persecution. A commission that demands dignity from judges must also show dignity to judges.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court had already warned the JSC in Wasilwa v Judicial Service Commission, Petition E237 of 2023, that it was wrong to proceed without first determining Justice Wasilwa’s threshold objections. Those objections went to the core of the matter: whether the JSC had jurisdiction to treat a judicial ruling as misconduct before the appellate process had done its work, and whether judicial immunity protected a judge acting in the exercise of judicial authority. The court found that the JSC’s failure to determine those objections violated her right to fair administrative action under Article 47 of the Constitution and the Fair Administrative Action Act. That finding matters because the issue was never whether judges are untouchable. The issue was whether the JSC itself must obey the law when dealing with judges. The answer is yes.

Then came the Court of Appeal judgment. It arrived before the removal proceedings had even concluded. That timing turns this entire saga into a legal embarrassment of monumental proportions. A judge was being pressed to explain, defend and almost apologise for a ruling that the appellate court would later uphold. The absurdity is now plain. What is the JSC expected to do with that reality? If Justice Wasilwa is to be treated as removable for reaching that conclusion, should the appellate judges who unanimously agreed with her reasoning also be summoned and placed in the same dock? Should they too be accused of misconduct because they saw the same legal defects she saw? That is where the logic of the attack collapses under its own weight.

This is where Nelson Havi must be called out directly and fairly. Public criticism of judges is allowed. Hard questions about the Judiciary are necessary. Kenya cannot afford a bench that is beyond scrutiny, and no serious person should defend corruption where evidence exists. But it is reckless and unfair to convert disagreement with a ruling into a personal corruption label, especially after the Court of Appeal has confirmed that the ruling was legally sound. A senior lawyer should know the difference between a bad ruling, an appealable ruling, and a corrupt ruling. Those are not the same thing. When that distinction is deliberately blurred, the rule of law suffers.

A country that destroys judges for doing their work will soon have judges who fear doing their work. That is dangerous. Today it is Justice Wasilwa. Tomorrow it may be any judge handling land, elections, labour, procurement, taxation, human rights or corruption cases. If every decision that injures a rich party, a connected party, a loud party or a politically useful party becomes a basis for personal vilification, then Kenya will have courts in name but not in courage. The courtroom will become an extension of social media. Law will give way to intimidation. Judges will be punished not for being wrong, but for refusing to be useful.

Justice Hellen Wasilwa emerges from this episode not as a judge hiding behind her robe, but as a judicial officer whose reasoning has survived appellate scrutiny. Her integrity was questioned. Her dignity was tested. Her decision was attacked. Yet when the law finally spoke through the Court of Appeal, it did not condemn her. It vindicated the legal foundation of her ruling. That is why Kenyans must reject the casual assassination of judicial character. Criticise judgments. Appeal judgments. Analyse judgments. But do not call a judge corrupt simply because she made a decision you dislike.

The lesson is bigger than one judge and one advocate. The JSC must never become a parallel appellate court. It must not allow itself to be used as a weapon by disappointed litigants or angry lawyers. It must protect accountability, but it must also protect judicial independence. It must investigate genuine misconduct, but it must not humiliate judges for lawful judicial reasoning. And those with platforms, titles and influence must learn that words carry consequences. The Court of Appeal has spoken. Justice Wasilwa was right on the law. The attacks on her integrity were unfair. Kenya owes her not only fairness, but also the dignity that should never have been taken from her in the first place.

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