•Speaking during his submissions on Wednesday, Otiende said anyone is allowed to support the initiative and that is what the president did.
•"The one thing the court does not do in their 300 page judgement is fail to ask who are the promoters. BBI is an initiative promoted by Waweru and Junet. They engaged with the IEBC and collected the signatures," he said.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Lawyer Otiende Amollo has claimed that BBI promoters were Suna East MP Junet Mohammed and BBI secretariat co-chair Dennis Waweru.
"... the promoters were Waweru and Junet but the court insists that it was President Uhuru Kenyatta," he said.
Speaking during his submissions on Wednesday, Otiende said anyone is allowed to support the initiative and that is what the president did.
"The one thing the court does not do in their 300 page judgement is fail to ask who are the promoters. BBI is an initiative promoted by Waweru and Junet. They engaged with the IEBC and collected the signatures," he said.
He said the ideas were reduced into a bill and it's at that point that the popular initiative started.
"The IEBC accepted the Junet and Waweru initiative and were authorized to collect signatures from Kenyans. They collected the signatures and submitted them to IEBC which did a letter to the counties and confirmed to them who the promoters of the BBI are," he said.
"Without a doubt the promoters of the initiative are the two gentlemen that I have mentioned above."
The JLAC report shows the two appeared before the committee as the promoters.
"Can the president initiate popular initiative? Even though he did not initiate it nothing stops the president from initiating the promoting a popular initiative," he said.
"Anyone can campaign for any cause so are this rights limited to exclude the president. It’s a misconception that the president can only go through parliament that is a not true."
The lawyer said there is no such word as 'initiator' there is only 'promoter'.
On Monday, Waweru told the Star that they hope that the Appeal Court will overturn the High Court ruling.
"We have a very competent legal team and a very strong case. We hope that we are going to win the case since we have very strong grounds as the promoters," the former Dagoretti South MP said.
Waweru, who alongside Junet were the promoters of the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020 said they feel that the High Court erred in their judgment.
"For instance, the judgment was misdirected at the wrong people, it was a misrepresentation of facts since President Uhuru and Raila were not the promoters," he said.
SIGNATURES
Otiende said the court also ruled that Wanjiku should initiate the amendment and go through all the steps involved in law from collecting signatures all the way to Parliament.
"Those prescriptions by the court are impossible to achieve. They are eutopic there were over 4 million signatures not a single person came out to complain that my name was there erroneously," he said.
"It is also to be noted that the court failed to take judicial notice that there is a referendum bill which demonstrate that you cannot have multiple referendum questions. "
High Court judges on May 17 declared the process illegal and unconstitutional and censured the electoral agency for plans to hold a referendum without proper public participation.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM boss Raila Odinga, key proponents of the push to change the Constitution, are seeking to convince the Court of Appeal judges to clear the road for a referendum.