‘So help me God’. This is the phrase that is synonymous with the president and state officers as they take the oath of office. The words are also affirmed by witnesses while testifying in court.
Although the phrase appears so harmless, wait until Prof Karega Munene, a professor of history and a confessed atheist, gets to the witness box. There was drama when the lecturer refused to invoke God’s name while taking the oath as he prepared to testify in a Nairobi court.
Wins
Somehow, the don had his way after he successfully persuaded Employment and Labour Relations Court judge James Rika against being compelled to swear in God’s name. In a profound ruling, the judge urged Kenyans to rethink the usefulness of oaths and affirmations in judicial proceedings and public service with a view to discarding them.
He said no one should be forced to swear by God or sing a national anthem that acknowledges a deity he or she does not believe to exists.
“The Constitution and the Oaths and Statutory Declarations Act do not compel anyone to swear by God,” said the judge.
He wondered whether the oaths and affirmations being administered in courts are feared morally and religiously that witnesses would not dare take them, unless they are perfectly sure and beyond any doubt that their evidence is truthful.
“Does the invocation of the name of God in oaths put the fear of God in witnesses and compel them to tell the truth?” asked the judge.
USIU unhappy
In the witness stand, Prof Munene said he won’t mention God’s name while taking the oath. He is a claimant in a dispute with United States International University (USIU) Africa.
The advocate representing the higher learning institution insisted the don must mention the name of God, but Prof Munene’s lawyer objected, arguing that being an atheist, the lecturer could not be compelled to swear by God’s name.
The court agreed that Prof Munene would adduce his evidence without stating the words ‘So help me God’.
But according to USIU-Africa’s lawyer, the preamble to the Constitution and the National Anthem, by mentioning God, acknowledged the supremacy of the Almighty.
The university also argued that courts had forms of oaths and all citizens must abide by the set standards.
Judge’s take
However, Justice Rika disagreed with the assertion, noting that although the reference to God in the Preamble and in the National Anthem appears on the face of it, Article 8 affirmed that there is no state religion and Kenya is, therefore, a secular state.
“Our legal system is secular, and the name of God is not a legal concept. Secular means not connected with religious or spiritual matters,” he said.
According to the judge, plenty of practices and laws that define the legal profession and judicial proceedings were archaic and based on misty Judeo-Christian and Roman traditions and should be discarded because they don’t add value to the practice of law. He further observed that Latinisms, which permeate the legal discourse, horsehair wigs, baronial robes, and the requirement to administer and take oaths fall within this category of archaic practices.
No value
“Swearing a witness by God, by body organs, or by slaughtering a male goat does not assist the course of truth and the administration of justice,” noted Justice Rika.
He stated that presidents, legislators, and other senior state officers are sworn in the name of God to uphold and protect the Constitution but “spend their entire tenure of office, mutilating and ravaging the Constitution”.
According the judge, witnesses are sworn or affirmed, but the swearing does not impress upon them to give evidence truthfully.
“The invocation of the name of God does not instil fear as intended for the state officers or witnesses in judicial proceedings to speak and act truthfully,” he said.
Kenya being a secular state, persons of different persuasions ought to be free to live their lives, believing or not believing in any deities, ruled Justice Rika. BY DAILY NATION