• On Tuesday, the Labour Court prohibited the county assembly to deliberate, table for debate, or vote for the removal of Sonko as governor pending inter-parties hearing.
• Sonko maintains that another court had in February stopped his impeachment and that the order is still in force.
Image: COURTESY
Embattled Govenor Mike Sonko claims that 62 members of county assembly did not append their signatures on the motion calling for his impeachment.
According to documents before Justice Nzioki wa Makau of the Employment and Labour Court, the 62 MCAs have sworn affidavits denying ever appending their signatures to any motion.
On Tuesday, the court temporarily stopped the impeachment motion in the county assembly pending the hearing and determination of the case.
Makau prohibited the Nairobi county assembly from deliberating, tabling for debate, putting a vote on the motion by MCA Michael Okumu for the removal of Sonko as governor pending inter-parties hearing on Thursday.
In the case, Sonko claims he has affidavits of the 62 MCAs who never signed the impeachment motion.
He has sued the assembly clerk, the speaker, the county assembly and MCAs Peter Imwatok and Michael Okumu.
Sonko says his removal as the governor is a weighty matter and neither a casual nor mere business of the county assembly.
He argues, through lawyer Harrison Kinyanjui, that Justice Byrum Ongaya had in February stopped his impeachment and that the order is still in place.
Kinyanjui says on November 26, the county assembly moved to set in a new motion to unlawfully and wholly unconstitutionally impeach the governor notwithstanding that the process had been stopped.
He claims Imwatok's impeachment motion has not been withdrawn formally. According to the lawyer, it is only the member who gave the notice of the motion who can withdraw it and that this has not been done.
The governor says he has not been served with any affidavit affirming the veracity of the allegations in the impeachment motion by Okumu as the standing orders demand.
He further claims he has not received any exhibits to support Okumu's allegations.
“This deliberate withholding of evidential material by the speaker and MCA Okumu is an express violation of Article 10 of the Constitution on good governance,” Sonko argues.
Kinyanjui maintains that the county assembly has no power to remove Sonko from an elected position through "illegal means and avenues".
Meanwhile, Nairobi resident Paul Musyimi has filed a constitutional petition seeking to stop Sonko’s impeachment.
Musyimi wants the court to stop the debate of Sonko’s impeachment pending the hearing of his petition.
The governor has sworn an affidavit, saying the motion was brought to the assembly in bad faith.
He says he is likely to be subjected to a hearing on issues in court where a judge has already stopped his impeachment.
“The subject matter and the grounds upon which the said motion is premised are substantively and actively pending determination before court and involves the same parties,” the document states.