High Court judge George Odunga has ended his tenure at the Milimani Law Courts Judicial Review Division, with his new posting in Machakos.
He is among 17 judges who were reshuffled last year by Chief Justice David Maraga last year.
Judge Odunga has sparked controversy in the recent past over his handling of high-profile cases challenging the constitutionality of executive actions.
Last week, he won admiration and criticism in equal measure when he fined Interior CS Dr Fred Matiang’i, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet and Immigration PS Gordon Kihalangwa Sh200, 000 each for disobeying court orders in the Miguna Miguna case.
In one of his high-profile cases, Odunga presided over; was a petition challenging the constitutionality of a raft of security laws passed by Parliament in 2015 in one of the most chaotic scenes in Kenyan history.
In a landmark ruling, he picked several pieces of the legislation and declared them unconstitutional-a ruling that brought him under fire from Jubilee allied parliamentarians who branded him according to Nairobi News, an “activist judge”. His ruling was later upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Last year, just before the August 8 polls, he handled yet another sensitive petition where the legality of IEBC county election managers was challenged. He ruled that they were illegally in office, but the Appellate Court overturned his decision.
National Assembly Leader of Majority Aden Duale at one point felt the judge was an opposition sympathizer and is on record warning him that they will “look into his conduct”.
Though the judge has left the city’s Judicial Review Division, as late as yesterday, he was again put on the red as Matiang’i railed at him for condemning him over the Miguna saga at JKIA without hearing him out.
A visibly agitated CS told Parliament’s Security Committee led by Kiambaa MP Paul Koinange that Judge Odunga condemned him together without the IG and Immigration PS without hearing him out and based on a lie.
“We got condemned unheard, on the basis of lies,” said Matiang’i.