Lawyers divided over election of nominee to JSC

By ROBERT NYASATO

A sharp split looms among lawyers following the  pushing to next year of the election of their representative to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) pushed the election of its nominee from this year to February 20 next year, raising concern among some lawyers that the society will miss proper representation for more than three months.

Some also alleged the decision could have been made to favour one of the candidates. Lawyers are also worried that the society will be represented by only one member, Florence Mwangangi, at the commission instead of two as legally provided in the Constitution.

The three-year term of the current LSK representative to JSC Ahmednassir Abdullahi expires on December 31.

Lawyers interviewed by The Standard On Sunday but who wished not to be named for fear of being accused of undermining the society, said the Judiciary seemed to have pulled a first one on LSK as they conducted elections to replace their representative, Justice  Isaac Lenaola, ahead of expiry of his term last October.

Justice Aggrey Muchelule was elected to replace Justice Lenaola who did not defend the seat after landing a job as a judge in the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Raised questions

Advocates have raised questions as to why the dates were changed, claiming they were meant to favour certain candidates.

But LSK chairman Eric Mutua dismissed the allegations, saying fixing of election dates was arrived at in consultation with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission(IEBC) which will conduct the polls, and was never a unilateral decision of the society.

“The electoral body was not available until next year as it is busy with by-elections...the change of dates was purely logistical and should not raise any alarm,” Mutua told The Standard on Sunday.

He said there would be no vacuum at the JSC since the society already has a representative (Mwangangi), whose term is still valid  and that the commission only needed seven members to have quorum.

Contacted, International Commission of Jurists(ICJ) Executive Director George Kegoro declined to comment on the issue, saying as a past chair of LSK, he was not best placed to deliberate on the elections.

Prudence dictates that elections should be conducted before the expiry of the term of the current LSK representative to the commission, who like any other eligible person, has a right to defend the seat. There is no limit as to the terms one can hold the office.

Supporting the LSK move to push the elections to next year, lawyer Evans Monari said there was nothing wrong as the polls will be in tandem with election of the council chair and the disciplinary committee.

He said the Judiciary replaced their nominee to JSC in time because it is logistically easy to assemble judges and magistrates than gathering the more than 7,000 advocates scattered all over the country.

“There would be a problem if we didn’t have representative at the JSC and the replacement delayed, but that is not the case since we have Mwangangi there,” Monari said on the telephone.

Speaking at a lawyers colloquium at Serena Hotel in Nairobi on Wednesday, former chairman of the defunct Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission PLO Lumumba raised the red flag  over a trend where some candidates were using the LSK structures to host lawyers for dinners, which amounted to voter treatment, an electoral offense.

But LSK Chief Executive Apollo Mboya said there were clear guidelines on how candidates should conduct themselves during the electioneering period.

He said the code of conduct for the elections by LSK is customised along the one used by IEBC for the General Election.

He said those who had been hosting lawyers for dinners were interested parties only scheming for the polls but had not officially qualified as candidates given they had not presented nomination papers.

However, Monari took issue with the dinners, saying it was during such events that people were being endorsed for posts with a presumption that past chairs of LSK were the only ones capable of representing lawyers at such commissions.

Ahmednassir, Tom Ojienda, Okongo Omogeni and Kabaru Ndegwa were on Friday cleared to run for the JSC post. Ken Nyaundi did not present his papers despite having expressed interest.