Supreme battle: Lawyers who kept Kenyans glued to TV

It is not every day a lawyer gets the opportunity to argue a presidential election petition as the chance might come only once every five years and when it came, the new crop of learned friends grabbed the opportunity. Here are some of the new faces who livened up the petition proceedings:

Julie Soweto

She was one of the layers acting for Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua.

Her eloquence, charisma and charm wowed the court as she went about demonstrating how the IEBC system was allegedly infiltrated by foreigners and Forms 34A altered using same serial number from different counties.

He might be short of experience compared to his seniors who led the IEBC team but his excellent grasp of information and technology law might have informed the reason he was assigned to tackle the issues on uploading of Forms 34A, postponement of elections, vote discrepancies and irregularities that might have affected the final presidential results.

"What the petitioners presented to this court were mere falsified documents that did not originate from the IEBC. They cooked up lies and want the court to believe them when we have proved that the election was free, fair, credible and transparent," he said.

Somane has a Bachelor's degree in law from the University of Nairobi and two Master's degrees in law from Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School, respectively, which he achieved courtesy of a Fulbright scholarship.

Melissa Ng'ania

There was no doubt that Melissa Ng'ania had grown since her moment of fame during the 2017 presidential election when she was the youngest lawyer in the team representing President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In this petition, she showed more courage and did not blink an eye when facing the seven judges as part of the team of advocates defending President-elect William Ruto.

Being in a team that had a senior counsel, Ms Ng'ania was assigned the light role of dealing with issue number five that had been formulated by the Supreme Court judges.

The issue was whether there were discrepancies in presidential votes and other elective seats.

"Chebukati was playing a game which my grandmother used to call karafu (smuggling) or someone singing pinky pinky ponky, paka mielo disco (pinky pinky ponky, the cat is dancing in a disco)," said Otieno.

The lawyer is a partner at Ogola and Otieno Advocates where he is in charge of litigation, governance, public law, elections, constitutional and administrative law as well as political processes.

He has a Bachelor's of Law degree from Moi University and a Master's of Law degree from the University of Nairobi and were it not for the IEBC to reject the nomination of businessman Jimi Wanjigi as a presidential candidate, he would have also been on the ballot after Wanjigi nominated him as his running mate.

Lawyer Jackson Awele Onyango. [File, Standard]

Jackson Awele

In four major cases in the country, Jackson Awele Onyango has cut a name of an avid and sharp litigator.

Awele has for the second time shown up for Raila Odinga by either arguing before the judges or being behind the thousands of documents filed before the Supreme Court alongside Arnold Oginga.

At 39 years, he has played in the league of senior lawyers such as Prof. Githu Muigai, James Orengo, Phillip Murgor and Fred Ngatia, Kioko Kilukumi but still manages to shine his light.

He has appeared in the Raila 2017 Presidential petition, he was a lead lawyer in the Huduma Namba case against the government and now he was in the Raila and Martha Karua case this year.

He argued about the scrutiny of ballot boxes that happened at the Supreme Court sub-registry housed at Milimani.

According to him, out of the 45 polling stations, his team focused on the qualitative aspect of the results and electoral materials deposited in the ballot boxes.

"We submit that you will find one QR code and one KIEM validation form that was found in the ballot submitted for scrutinizing. The question was where are they? In light of Ms Soweto's argument, your guess is as good as mine," he submitted.

Admitted to the bar in 2010, Awele is a qualified Advocate of the High Court of Kenya with over 11 years of experience in dispute resolution practice. He was instructed as a pupil at Kaplan & Stratton and upon admission to the bar started practice of law at the said firm and later at Oraro & Co from where he left to found his current private practice.

He had a stint in London understudying solicitors and Barristers at Clifford Chance LLP and One Essex Court Chambers respectively as the 2014 Kenya nominee of the prestigious ILFA secondment programme.

Awele has acted in high profile Dispute resolution matters including the successful 2017 Presidential Election Petition in which he was the Advocate on record for the successful petitioner Raila Odinga. In 2013 whilst an Associate at Oraro & Co., he participated in the 2013 election petition on behalf of Raila Odinga

Mr Awele was a core member of the 2022 presidential Election Petition team and was one of the key drafters, strategists and presenters in the said petition.