Just five days after Francis Meja was sworn in as Chairperson of the Public Service Commission (PSC), two Kenyan citizens have rushed to the High Court in Nairobi seeking urgent orders to remove him from office, arguing his appointment is unconstitutional and void from the outset.
The petition by Dr. Magare Gikenyi and Eliud Karanja Matindi, a Kenyan resident in Bournemouth, United Kingdom, targets the entire chain of events that culminated in Meja’s appointment, from the Selection Panel’s shortlisting to President William Ruto’s gazette notice of February 27, 2026.
At the heart of the case is a simple but explosive question on whether can a sitting PSC commissioner be reappointed to the same commission in a different role, effectively extending his tenure beyond the six-year constitutional limit?
The petitioners say no, and they want the court to say so too, urgently.
“On March 4,2026, the 3rd Respondent started his tenure as chairperson of PSC upon taking the oath of office, which action is unconstitutional null and void.”
Meja was first appointed as a PSC member on January 16, 2025, via Gazette Notice No. 386, and assumed office on January 20, 2025.
Under Article 250(6)(a) of the Constitution, PSC commissioners serve a single, non-renewable six-year term.
The petitioners argue that by accepting appointment as chairperson, a new six-year term starting February 27, 2026, Meja would effectively serve until 2032, more than thirteen years in total as a PSC commissioner.
The petitioners had raised the alarm well before Meja’s appointment was gazetted.
On December 10, 2025, they wrote to the PSC Selection Panel contesting the shortlisting of four sitting commissioners, including Meja, for the chairperson vacancy.
On February 18, 2026, they submitted a formal statement to the National Assembly opposing his approval. Both interventions were ignored.
In their statement to the National Assembly, the petitioners warned that approval and appointment of Francis Meja as Chair of the Public Service Commission would therefore be a violation of Article 250(6)(a) of the Constitution and Section 7(4), Public Service Commission Act, which limit the term in office of a member of the Public Service Commission to a single term of six years.
The National Assembly nonetheless approved Meja’s appointment on February 25, 2026, on the recommendation of its Departmental Committee on Labour.
The petitioners argue that approval was a violation of Articles 10, 232, 233(3)(c and d), 249(1) and 250(3, 4 and 6) of the Constitution.
The petition invokes a binding precedent the petitioners themselves secured last year.
In Gikenyi B. & another v National Assembly & 6 others (Petition E018 of 2025), the High Court held that a serving member of a constitutional commission cannot apply for a vacancy in the same commission if doing so would breach the mandatory term limit.
All the current respondents were parties to that case.
The petitioners charge that all respondents “aided and abetted the 3rd – 6th Respondents’ impugned actions of applying, shortlisting, interviewing, recommending for nomination, the nomination, approval, appointment, and assumption to office of chairperson of PSC, knowing they were ineligible for appointment to that office.”
Through their urgent application, the petitioners are asking the court to suspend Gazette Notice No. 2573 and bar Meja from performing any functions as PSC Chairperson while the petition is heard.
In the main petition, they seek to have his appointment declared invalid, and ask for a permanent bar on Meja and three other commissioners, Mary Wanjira Kimonye, Boya Molu, and Dr. Francis Owino Otieno, from holding any state or public office in Kenya.
The matter has not yet been assigned a hearing date.
Katiba Institute, the PSC itself, and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission have been joined as interested parties.
