• The state has been urged to invoke the necessary machinery to ensure that Miguna returns home peacefully after due compliance strictly with the orders of Justice Mwita.
• President Uhuru Kenyatta hinted on Monday that Miguna should be allowed back without drama.
Image: EZEKIEL AMINGÁ
Controversial lawyer Miguna Miguna has notified the state he will fly back to Kenya next week from Canada and asked it to comply with court orders to facilitate his return.
In a letter dated December 24, 2019, Miguna states that he will arrive from Canada on Tuesday, January 7 at 9pm on Lufthansa flight number LH590.
Miguna, the self-styled 'general' of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) was deported to Canada on February 7, 2018.
He was pushed onto an airliner after a stand-off and scuffle at JKIA. Police earlier smashed their way into his home and arrested him.
DCI George Kinoti said Miguna was arrested for administering an illegal oath [to Nasa leader Raila Odinga, as the people's president] and being a member of NRM, a proscribed organisation.
However, on Monday, President Uhuru Kenyatta hinted that Miguna could be allowed back into the country without the drama that accompanied his last return.
“I have heard that some people are now planning to fly into the country. Let them come because that is their freedom,” Uhuru said.
He was speaking at Charles Rubia's funeral.
Miguna protested his deportation, saying he was a Kenyan-born citizen at the time he was deported and that at no point did he renounce his citizenship.
He said Kenyan officials seized and destroyed his Kenyan passport.
Lawyer John Khaminwa outlined 10 court orders that the government has failed to comply with.
“We urge you respectfully to ensure that the orders delivered by Justice Chacha Mwita are strictly complied with. The orders delivered by the learned judge are in respect of petition 51/2018 against the state,” the letter reads.
Khaminwa adds that Appeal Court judges ruled on March 12, 2018: “We also do not see how the return of Miguna portends a clear and present danger of social upheaval or a breakdown of law and order.”
The state has been urged to invoke the necessary machinery to ensure that Miguna returns home peacefully after strict compliance with Justice Mwita's orders.
Lawyer Khaminwa wrote to Interior CS Fred Matiang'i, DCI boss Kinoti, Attorney General Paul Kihara, Police IG Hillary Mutyambai and Director of immigration Alexander Muteshi.
In December 2018, the court ordered Matiang’i and the then Immigration PS Gordon Kihalangwa pay Miguna Sh7.2 million for unlawfully deporting him to Canada and damaging his house in Runda.
High Court judge Mwita also ruled that Miguna is a Kenyan citizen who has never lost his citizenship, even after obtaining his Canadian passport. He said Miguna cannot lose citizenship which he had obtained by birth.
“The purpose of awarding damages in this and any other case is to act as a deterrent to avoid repetition and also send a message to state officers that rights of citizens must be protected,” the judge said.
In his view, the manner in which Matiang’i and Kihalangwa conducted themselves was contrary to the law. He called their actions abuse of office.
“Though the state doesn’t like his [Miguna's] abrasiveness, they are bound to adhere to the rule of law and protect his constitutional rights,” the court ruled.
Judge Mwita further declared that Matiang’i’s confiscation of Miguna’s passport was unconstitutional and lacking any legal authority.
He ordered the state to reinstate Miguna’s passport since it had been irregularly seized from him.
The court further said there could not be a worse violation of the law and rights than in Miguna’s case, considering what he went endured at the hands of the state.
The judge also quashed a Gazette notice dated January 30, 2018, declaring NRM, the National Resistance Movement, an outlawed movement.
(Edited by V. Graham)