Africa-Press – Kenya. Prof Margaret Kameri- Mbote faced the Judicial Service Commission panel on the second day of interviews for the post of Chief Justice.
In her plenary interview on April 13, Prof Mbote explained that being a woman leader had a number of challenges narrating several events while she was the Dean of the University of Nairobi Law School.
During her tenure, she explained that a section of students did not take her authority seriously to an extent of setting up a bar outside her office.
“The goons decided to set up a bar behind my office and they were having fun with loud music – dombolo music,” he narrated.
The Professor disclosed that she went on to warn them to turn the music down and set the bar elsewhere which after a brief altercation the students obliged.
In another incident, she found out that senior students defrauded first-year students with a dubious registration fee during the orientation week.
In what was the final straw, she explained that the unruly students disrupted a beauty pageant at the Parklands campus which she sought disciplinary action against them.
The students were later expelled in accordance with the University Senate disciplinary guidelines.
She further disclosed that her physical build often put her at a disadvantage as people would expect her to be ‘plump’ in accordance with her titles.
“I once attended an event with a registrar who was a man and given that I am not big, the organizers welcomed the registrar as the dean and I said, well, proceed,” she told the panel.
Among her achievement in law, Prof Mbote also served as the Director of Research and Policy Outreach and Acting Executive Director at the African Centre for Technology Studies, Nairobi.
She was a member of the Committee of Eminent Persons appointed by His Excellency the President of Kenya in February 2006 to advise the government on the way forward for the stalled constitution review process.
