By James Murimi - Reporter
Kenya, 9 June 2026 - Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Tuesday rejected a KSh 50 million compensation award granted by the High Court and announced plans to challenge a judgment that upheld his impeachment despite finding that his constitutional rights had been violated.
In a fiery response delivered hours after the ruling, Gachagua accused the three-judge bench of contradicting itself by declaring the impeachment process unconstitutional while allowing its outcome to stand.
"The Constitution provided for an appellate court and the Supreme Court. We believe we shall fight to get justice one day," said Gachagua, who now leads the Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP).
The former Deputy President said the court's finding that his rights to a fair hearing and fair administrative action had been violated should automatically have invalidated the impeachment process.
"Once that determination was made, the entire process collapsed and was null and void. There was no impeachment," he said.
Gachagua dismissed the KSh 50 million damages award as inadequate and irrelevant.
"The KSh 50 million awarded to me is an insult to my fundamental rights and freedoms and a mockery of the Constitution. We are not interested. Money was never the issue here. Justice and constitutional supremacy was," he said.
In one of his most striking remarks, Gachagua likened the court's decision to a man who is wrongly jailed while another man takes his wife.
He said a judge who later finds that the imprisonment was unlawful should release the prisoner rather than leave him in jail because his wife has since remarried.
According to Gachagua, the court acknowledged that his rights had been violated but declined to reverse the impeachment because doing so would create what he termed a constitutional crisis by leaving the country with two Deputy Presidents.
"He is told to remain in prison while another man continues living with his wife, and is instead given some money as compensation," Gachagua said, using the analogy to illustrate what he described as the absurdity of the judgment.
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The former Deputy President also claimed that President William Ruto had previously offered him KSh 2 billion to resign and avoid impeachment, an offer he said he rejected.
"If I was interested in money, Mr William Ruto had offered me KSh 2 billion in an effort to entice me to avoid impeachment and choose resignation, but I stood for my rights and those of over seven million Kenyans who voted for me," he claimed.
The remarks came after Justices Eric Ogolla, Anthony Mrima and Freda Mugambi delivered a landmark ruling that upheld Gachagua's impeachment and affirmed the appointment of Prof Kithure Kindiki as Deputy President.
However, the judges found that the Senate violated Gachagua's constitutional rights when it declined a request to adjourn impeachment proceedings despite his absence.
The court consequently awarded him KSh 50 million in constitutional damages, saying the award was intended to vindicate the Constitution, restore dignity and deter future violations of rights during impeachment proceedings.
"The award is not compensation for loss of office," the judges said.
Despite securing the damages award, Gachagua maintained that the judgment was legally flawed and confirmed that his legal team led by Senior Counsel Paul Muite had been instructed to challenge the decision at the Court of Appeal.
The appeal now sets the stage for another high-stakes legal battle over one of Kenya's most consequential impeachments.