Court suspends Uasin Gishu County Assembly sittings

Uasin Gishu County Assembly. [Michael Ollinga, Standard] Uasin Gishu County Assembly has been thrown into a crisis after the High Court in Eldoret suspended its sitting following a petition challenging its composition. Justice Wananda Anuro issued the orders in a case filed by human rights activist, Kimutai Kirui. On Tuesday evening, Justice Anuro ordered that the sittings and operations of the assembly be suspended pending the hearing and determination of the case. "An order is hereby issued suspending all official sittings/meetings, and deliberations by members of the Uasin Gishu County Assembly pending the hearing and determination of this application," read part of Justice Anuro's order. Kirui moved to court after an earlier court decision vacated the nomination of ten UDA members to the assembly to fulfil the two-third gender requirement and marginalized groups. The Human Rights activist argued in his petition that the county assembly is not fully and duly constituted unless all the members required under the constitution have been fully nominated and their names published in the gazette. 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 claimed that out of the 44 members, there are currently 34 members after 10 of them were ruled to have been illegitimately nominated to the assembly. "The Assembly, which had 44 Members prior to September 1, 2023, is now left with 34 among whom only seven are women. This represents merely 20 per cent of all representatives of the Assembly," he told the court. 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," Kirui stated. He further argued that the nomination of ten members had been challenged in court, which declared that they were not validly nominated. Last month, ten United Democratic Alliance (UDA) nominated 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 the execution of the High Court judgment issued by Justice Stephen Riech stayed pending the determination of their second appeal. Justice Riech agreed with the lower Court decision stating that the UDA party as well as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) while nominating the MCAs, relied on a list that had been declared null and void by the political parties' tribunal. "The only genuine list of the nominated MCAs was the one dated July 27, 2022, and not the one filed by UDA on August 24, 2022," the Court stated last week. 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. Kirui in his petition is seeking the court to declare that all business transacted and decisions made by the County Assembly of Uasin Gishu on and after September 1, 2023, as null and void. The matter will be mentioned on October 18 for further directions.

Court suspends Uasin Gishu County Assembly sittings

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Court suspends Uasin Gishu County Assembly sittings

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