By Abdimalik Ismail - Reporter
Kenya, 19 November 2025 - A petitioner from Garissa has sued the National Assembly for disregarding President William Ruto’s directive on the consideration of regional balance on the appointment of the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) commissioners.
In the court documents, Ms Rukia Mohamed petitioned the National Assembly, the selection panel for nominees for appointment as chairperson and members of National Police Service commission and Public Service Commission as respondents.
According to the petitioner, President Ruto emphasised on the former provincial boundaries/regions as a basis of asserting the imbalance in the commission.
Ms Mohamed, through her lawyer Sallah & Advocates, argues that the nine commissioners come from counties that border each other and all cluster together in the South-Western part of Kenya.
The petitioner moved to court to compel the respondents to provide to the criteria, formula or method used to shortlist the nominee, make public the shortlisted names forwarded to the President from where he chose to nominate the nominee from, the appraisal forms and scoring given to every candidate who was shortlisted for appointment and the recording of the interviews conducted by the selection panel of all the shortlisted candidates.
“Indeed in the previous vetting conducted on the 9 June 2025, the National Assembly Departmental Committee report noted that, at Paragraph 43 Page 14, the President referred back the list of candidates recommended for appointment as Chairperson, together with that of one proposed member on the grounds that they do not individually and collectively, satisfy the requisite constitutional, statutory or representational thresholds and accordingly advised the Selection Panel to readvertise the positions of Chairperson and one Member and undertake fresh recruitment exercise in accordance with the law,” read part of the petition.
She said appointment representatives were picked from South Rift regions 3, Central 2, Western 2, Nyanza 1, and Coast 1 disregarding Eastern and North-Eastern regions in the appointment.
Even before the appointment, Ms Rukia had petitioned the National Security Committee and Coordination regarding the consideration in the petition which was received and stamped on 14 July 2024.
However, surprisingly the committee report tabled before the national assembly noted that they have not received any memorandum contesting the suitability of the nominees.
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“In this regard, by close of business 12 August 2025 at 5pm, the committee had not received any memoranda contesting the suitability of the nominees. The committee however received a recommendation letter from a women organisation supporting the nomination of Ms Angeline Yiamiton Siparo,” read the committee report seen by Dawan Africa on Wednesday.
When all efforts to bring the matter to the legislative arm were ignored, a constitutional case was filed by Sallah & Advocates under certificate of urgency before High Court Judge Lawrence Mugambi, who ordered the Parliament and the National Police Service be served and a compliance date set on 15 October 2025 for direction.
However, the Parliament in their defense application claimed limited powers to submit the report and proposed their mandate on vetting of integrity issues only.
They claim to have no oversight role in regional balances pushing the whole matter to the office of the head of public service and Justice Mugambi granted them be served.
The PSC last week was served with the court order to give direction on the failure to appoint NPSC commissioners, who do not reflect the regional and the ethnic diversity of the people of Kenya.
In the petition, the High Court in Nairobi, Constitutional and Human Rights Division has ordered the PSC to share details on how they attained on the appointment of the nine commissioners without considering Article 246 (4) of the Constitution of Kenya.
On the 15 October 2025 judge Mugambi gave directions that the matter be mentioned in March 2026, with the selection panel to be removed as respondents and replaced with the Public Service Commission.
