•LSK accused of failure to uphold Chapter Six of Constitution
•Election would set a bad precedent
Image: FILE
A lawyer yesterday sued to stop the Law Society of Kenya's election of the male representative to the Judicial Service Commission.
The election has faced numerous hurdles in the past when an issue was raised on whether to stop Tom Ojienda, a candidate, amid controversies raging from tax compliance to graft investigations. LSK, however, cleared Ojienda.
Lawyer Mark Ndumia filed a case, arguing the exercise should not be allowed to go on before his case is heard and determined.
He argues LSK went against the wishes of its members by clearing ineligible candidates.
The council failed to comply with Chapter Six of the Constitution and lowered the bar below the bare minimum acceptable levels in any respectable association which would invite anarchy, he says.
And if the court does not intervene, he said, there is a high likelihood that a dangerous precedent would be set for future elections of the LSK, where the observance of the law would no longer be a prerequisite.
Ndumia says that last year more than seven members seeking elective positions to council were disqualified for failing to meet the threshold as envisaged in the electoral code of conduct by not providing clearance certificates from KRA and HELB.
The lawyer wants the society ordered to serve all council minutes between November 2018 and February 2019 in respect to passing of resolutions setting out the minimum eligibility standards for JSC elections for male representative.
Also sought is an order to stop the society from holding elections in respect to male .
On February 15 the President of LSK Allen Gichuhi issued a communication to members announcing that he had called for an extra ordinary meeting of the council on February 18 to review earlier decision which cleared all candidates.
However at the extra ordinary meeting a majority of the council members resolved that there was no need to review its earlier decision.
This decision by the council, Ndumia feels is a slap in the face of the membership who were of the view that integrity needed to be upheld.
"By failing to review its patently illegal decision the council members who voted against the review breached section 29 of the Law Society of Kenya Act as they did not act in a bona fide manner," he said.
In his suit papers, Ndumia says, two out of the five candidates did not meet the threshold.
He says according to findings by an independent committee Prof Ojienda and Irungu Gathii were ineligible.
Ojienda allegedly failed to provide a KRA clearance certificate whereas Gathii failed to provide duly signed declaration from HELB, EACC, CID and KRA. The latter also sent his nomination papers past deadline.
However the findings of the independent committee, he said, were ignored by the LSK council which went ahead and cleared all the five candidates.