Kenyan news channel misleadingly claims judiciary swore in controversial government appointees

Kenya’s High Court declared the appointment of the 50 CAS nominees unconstitutional (archived here) on July 3, 2023.

The same day, Kenyan news channel Citizen TV ran a news report headlined “President Ruto's decisions suffer court action”. The broadcast was also uploaded to its official YouTube account.

“The judiciary long accused of aiding and abetting the executive impunity by participating in the swearing in of CASs whose offices have now been declared unconstitutional has redeemed itself with this judgement,” the presenter says at 4’40”.

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Screenshot of the misleading YouTube report, taken on July 7, 2023

The report prompted the judiciary to ask Citizen TV to retract the misleading section of the bulletin (archived here).

Some accused the news site of spreading misinformation.

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Screenshot showing a comment on Twitter condemning the broadcaster

CAS appointments

The positions of CAS were established (archived here) by former president Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018.

Serving as assistants to cabinet secretaries, their responsibilities include (archived here) helping senior government officials coordinate the running of their respective ministries.

In a broader sense, the assistants also oversee the correspondence between the cabinet secretaries’ offices, the Senate and National Assembly members, as well as liaising with Kenya’s 47 counties.

On October 2022, Kenya’s Public Service Commission (PSC) invited applications for CAS positions (archived here). About 240 candidates were interviewed in early March.

President William Ruto then proceeded to nominate 50 people (archived here) -- initial vacancies were declared for 23 nominees -- who were sworn in on March 23, 2023, at the State House.

In response, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and Katiba Institute challenged (archived here) the appointments in court. They argued that Ruto violated the law by appointing more assistants than prescribed.

The court barred the CAS from assuming office pending the hearing.

At the time, some had already claimed that the judiciary had presided over the CAS inauguration, pushing it to release a first denial on March 25, 2023 (archived here).

Misleading report

On July 4, 2023, Citizen TV reported on the judiciary’s denial of being involved in the CAS swearing-in ceremony. However, its initial misleading story from the previous day remains on YouTube without being corrected.

Nairobi-based lawyer Charles Kanjama also told AFP Fact Check the Citizen TV report was “misleading”.

“When the allegations first appeared, I sat down with a group of lawyer friends and reviewed the entire State House clip of the CASs swearing-in ceremony. There was no representative of the judiciary at the event,” he said.

AFP Fact Check reviewed the entire footage of the event (archived here). It shows Ruto and the head of the Public Service Commission, Felix Koskei, presiding over the swearing-in ceremony. No judiciary officials were present.