Elections showed that LSK has matured

By James Aggrey Mwamu

Kenya: The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has come a long way. The manner in which the members turned out in big numbers is a testimony that we are maturing and gearing for bigger things.

From 15 members decades ago, the Society has grown to 10,721 members bringing new challenges in terms of communication and proper management of the electoral process.

Fortunately, time is on our side to improve on our electoral rules and make them better. Compared to other jurisdictions, we are still fairly small in number and young in years.

Internationally, the largest Bar is in the United States of America with 1.2 million lawyers or legal practitioners. During the American Bar Association’s (ABA) first 25 years, the membership was small.  With membership by invitation only, the original roster of 289 grew to a mere 1,718 lawyers by 1903.

At the beginning of the 21st Century, the ABA is a far more diverse organisation, reflecting the growing number of women and minorities entering the profession.  This diversity has reached the highest offices of the organisation, with women and minorities chairing the House of Delegates and two women having served as ABA President.

Most recently the ABA elected the first African American to its presidency in a way that could not have been imagined by Simeon Baldwin and his colleagues who founded it in 1878. The ABA has developed for the last 200 years and its office is elected by House of Delegates.

India which is the next largest Bar with a million legal practitioners, has a different way of electing its officials. The Bar Council of India (BCI) consists of members elected from each State Bar Council, and the Attorney General of India and the Solicitor General of India who are ex officio members.

The members from the State Bar Councils are elected for a period of five years. The Council elects its own chairman and vice chairman for a period of two years from amongst its members. Assisted by the various committees of the Council, the chairman acts as the chief executive and director of the Council.

Finally the third largest Bar is the Brazilian Bar with 750,000 lawyers. The regulation of the legal profession is performed by the Brazilian Bar Association (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil – OAB), created in 1930 as a result of the preliminary works developed between 1834 and 1930 by the Brazilian Lawyers Institute (Instituto dos Advogados Brasileiros – IAB).

The OAB comprises a Federal Council and Sections in each state. Lawyers are nominated from each state to the Federal Council.

In Africa, Nigeria is the largest Bar with 70,000 Lawyers. Its last elections were marred with accusations of bribery. The elections are carried out by delegates or Electoral Colleges from each region.  In the last election, Okey Wali emerged as the President-elect of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in an election marred by the Jonathan administration’s meddling, widespread bribery of delegates, and other irregularities. 

It was alleged that Jonathan’s administration had budgeted and spent more than 1 billion Nigerian naira to shore up the campaigns and several delegates accused the outgoing NBA leadership, especially Joseph Daudu, the exiting president, of manipulating the voters register.

The LSK has come a long way from collection of ballots which was massively manipulated by the outgoing Chairperson, to elections run by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which is a change.  The elections held last week (February 6) were transparent, free and fair, devoid of bribery and fraud.

Finally, what the new Council needs to do is develop an electoral code of conduct to manage the elections, otherwise the future of LSK future looks bright and powerful.

The writer is President of the East Africa Law Society (EALS).