President Uhuru Kenyatta and his counterpart Raila Amollo Odinga are back to the drawing board after the High Court on Thursday, May 13, declared the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) unconstitutional.
The Attorney General (AG), Paul Kihara Kariuki, has since been directed to counter the decision by the 5-judge bench declaring BBI illegal having fallen short on ‘Public Interest’ grounds besides flouting several clauses of the Constitution.
Kariuki filed a suit in court seeking an injunction against the judgement – as he puts together his appeal.
The AG will be asking the Court of Appeal to clarify and interpret the meaning of ‘Public Interest’ as the bill garnered over 3 million signatures and was passed at County Assemblies, the Senate and the National Assembly.
Solicitor General Ken Ogeto expressed his disaffection.
“It is critical to take judicial notice of the fact that the BBI process has been undertaken extensively, over 3 million signatures have been collected, to the critical constitutional processes such as consideration of the Bill by the county assemblies have been undertaken, the Amendment Bill has been passed by the majority members of the National Assembly and the Senate, “court documents presented by Ogeto read.
“It is in the public interest that pending the filing of the Appeal and to enable him to exercise his right of appeal, an interim stay of execution of the judgment be hereby stayed,” it stated.
High Court judges – Justices Teresia Matheka, Joel Ngugi, George Odunga, Jairus Ngaah, and Chacha Mwita on Thursday, May 13, accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of failing to respect, uphold and safeguard the Constitution and to that extent, falling short of the leadership and integrity threshold set in the Constitution.
The judges in their wisdom argued that Uhuru and not a regular citizen was the initiator of the bill and this contravened the laws as the President does not have a Constitutional mandate to initiate amendments through a popular initiative.
Also, the BBI’s Secretariat was declared illegal as it was an initiative of the President while all actions taken by IEBC in respect to the Constitution Amendment Bill 2020 were ruled as null and void.
The ruling comes just days after ODM had its tenacity tested after legal minds Lawyer James Orengo and former Ombudsman lawyer Otiende Amollo raised issues with the BBI document and even sought to have some of the sections amended.