Uasin Gishu County Assembly resumes operations after court lifts suspension

The High Court in Eldoret has set aside orders, which had temporarily suspended all Uasin Gishu County Assembly operations following a pending court case challenging its composition.

Justice Wananda Anuro rescinded his earlier decision to suspend the Assembly sittings, noting that the week-old order may have unfairly paralysed the County Assembly against public interest.

The fresh order comes after the Assembly tabled its application through advocate Zephaniah Yego.

Yego told the court in his application that the Court order was affecting operations of the County Assembly.

He added that issues raised in the pending court case filed by Human Rights Activist Kimutai Kirui could be dealt with without paralysing essential services of the assembly and the county government.

"I am persuaded that the orders issued by this court on October 3 may have unfairly paralysed the County Assembly, hence prejudice to the rest of the County on service delivery. It is for this reason that the County has suspended the earlier orders," Justice Anuro ruled.

The judge further directed that the case filed by Kirui is still active and will come up for hearing on October 18.

Kirui had moved to court after an earlier court decision vacated the nomination of 10 UDA members to the assembly to fulfil the two-third requirement.

The Human Rights Activist based in Eldoret argued that the Uasin Gishu County Assembly is not fully and dully constituted unless all the members required under the Constitution have been fully nominated and their names published in the gazettte.

According to Kirui, the county assembly falls short of the required membership because the women and marginalized are not adequately represented. He said that the County Assembly has therefore been operating illegally.

He held that the county assembly of Uasin Gishu has no business carrying out transactions and deliberations/ sittings when it is not properly constituted.

"The County Assembly does not meet the requirements set forth under the Constitution and therefore all its sittings business transacted and decisions made are null and void," the Kirui stated in his petition.

He further argued that the election of 10 members had been challenged in court, which declared that they were not validly nominated.

Last month, the 10 United Democratic Alliance (UDA) nominated Members of County Assembly (MCAs) moved to the Court of appeal after the High Court upheld a ruling revoking their nomination.

The nominated MCAs had filed a notice of appeal seeking to have execution of the High Court judgment issued by Justice Stephen Riech stayed pending the determination of their second appeal.

The court upheld a lower court decision stating that the UDA party as well as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) relied on a list which had been declared null and void by the political parties' tribunal.

The Court stated that the UDA Party did not have any powers to revise, amend or review the party list once it was closed on July 27 last year.

The court further noted that even after the political parties' tribunal nullified the new list following complaints by the affected party members, the IEBC ignored the same and went ahead to rely on the nullified list.