LSK President Havi defends cup of tea in parliament

The Law Society of Kenya has dismissed claims that its hyped Occupy Parliament march flopped.

Through its president Nelson Havi, the society said media fraternity is to blame for blowing hot air from a serious enterprise.

Havi's led society was on Monday expected to lead a march to Parliament in the push of its dissolution following Chief Justice David Maraga's advisory for failing to implement the two-thirds gender rule.

But on arrival at the Parliament buildings, Havi and a handful of lawyers were given a warm reception and invited for a cup of tea where bread, samosa's and sausages were served.

"The parliament was able to accommodate a permissible number of us. There is no fascination in numbers, violence and chaos. We were to go there the 20 of us who were selected," Havi said.

It later culminated in a cordial meeting with the Clerk of the National Assembly.

But Havi while speaking on KTN News said before they were invited for a cup of tea, they held a meeting with the clerk for over two hours where they presented their notice for the parliamentarians to vacate office.

"It is shocking that the media fraternity is belittling a serious enterprise. The call by LSK was to peacefully march to Parliament and notify the two speakers of and their clerks of notice to vacate," he said.

"All the three leading media houses had their cameramen in the meeting and none has highlighted what was said but rather chose to focus on us having a cup of tea."

He said the bottom line of the matter is that they notified the clerk to inform parliamentarians that their time had elapsed.

"We asked the clerk, not to facilitate entry of the parliamentarians to the chambers, their payments and allowances. But the clerk informed us that they had moved to court and obtained stay orders," he said.

CJ Maraga issued the advisory to President Uhuru Kenyatta to dissolve the parliament after six petitioners moved to court over failure to implement the gender rule.

"Ours is not an attention-seeking stance, the current court litigation has no legal backing. It is just a scheme to use the court process to manipulate the constitution which the law society will not allow," Havi said.

He said currently the AG has sued the Chief Justice and joined the National Assembly and the Senate in the suit and the same time the national Assembly has sued the CJ and the AG over the same advisory.