•Advocate Omwanza Ombati and current LSK president Eric Theuri have declared interest in replacing Njeru with the duo going after each other in their campaigns.
• Theuri told the Star he is yet to give the vote hunt maximum concentration as he is still pre-occupied with attending to the society's matters.
Image: FILE
Campaign for replacement of Macharia Njeru as the male representative of advocates to the Judicial Service Commission has teed up, with two candidates throwing their hats in the ring.
Njeru’s term at the commission is winding down and elections are expected in February 2024, when the council of the Law Society of Kenya will also be up for fresh polls.
The clearance and nomination of candidates is expected in November.
Advocate Omwanza Ombati and current LSK president Eric Theuri have declared interest in replacing Njeru.
Theuri told the Star he is yet to give the vote hunt maximum concentration as he is still pre-occupied with attending to the society's matters. But Ombati has heightened his campaign and is vocal on various matters relating to lawyers’ interests.
He said Theuri cannot be trusted to effectively defend lawyers’ interest at the JSC because he has allegedly "failed a basic duty like ensuring integrity of their crucial private data".
Ombati told the Star that the choices lawyers have been presented with for the JSC representative in the coming polls “require us to either retain a complacent status quo or inject fresh representation based on active, forward looking and effective leadership, which Omwanza Ombati has offered”.
He said the next representative must be “a practitioner deeply rooted in day-to-day practice” and one who “understands the challenge of biased judicial appointments, limited accountability and hostile JSC-Bar relations as witnessed recently”.
He dismissed his competitor as one who makes numerous pledges he is not keen to fulfil, claiming that Theuri promised lawyers many things in 2021 when he sought LSK presidency but failed to meet them.
“It is not a choice for who makes the most pledges, as it is clear now the current LSK President and contender for JSC male rep has failed to fulfil promises he made in 2021. They were empty pledges, not worth anyone's salt,” he said.
He said his priorities for the advocates as the JSC representative would be a forceful agitator for protecting the Constitution, ensuring that judicial appointments are 60 per cent judicial officers and 40 per cent practicing advocates, and ensure a conducive practice environment.
When reached for comment, Theuri steered clear of the attacks by his rival, only asserting that he is busy serving the advocates whose mandate he still has and that he will soon retreat to concretise his ideas and strategies.
“I have numerous ideas about how the lawyers can best be represented at the JSC in the interest of the public and for better law practice environment but I will have to engage my think tank to concretise them so that I figure out how achievable anything I say is,” the soft-spoken LSK president said.
On the question of the alleged fake lawyer, Theuri has maintained that his leadership has seen the most robust attempt at weeding out advocate masqueraders and that the recent case of Brian Mwenda was a regular criminal activity like any other.
Mwenda has since been arraigned in court.