Chief Justice David Maraga at the Supreme Court on January 31, 2017. /Jack Owuor
Chief Justice David Maraga on Saturday directed lawyers involved in the presidential petition to conduct themselves with decorum and show “absolute” respect to each other.
He said he understood the emotions that would be involved in the litigation process but said the learned friends should not to be overcome by them.
“Let us conduct these proceedings soberly. I don’t want the council to dissent the arena of the clients so that we are able to conduct the business the way it is supposed to be conducted."
Maraga gave the message during his opening remarks at the start of the pre-trial conference of the petition Saturday night.
He went on: “Please don’t bring in any emotions from your clients. We are not here in a campaign forum. So let us restrict ourselves and deal with the matters that are before us.”
Parties in the petition filed by NASA leader Raila Odinga are being represented in the suit by Kenya’s top lawyers.
They include James Orengo, Pheroze Norjee, PLO Lumumba and Paul Muite.
Others are Fred Ngatia, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Evans Monari and Amollo Otiende.
Attorney General Githu Muigai and the Law Society of Kenya led by Charles Kanjama have also applied to be enjoined in the petition as friends of the court.
Maraga however said the court will make its determination on the applications and that of those seeking be enjoined as interested parties on Sunday.
“We will deal with them on the basis of the pleadings and the replies,” Maraga said.
As such, Muigai and fellow applicants were barred from making oral submissions during the pre-trial session.
The pre-trial conference will be followed by full hearings on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with the judges expected to start preparing verdicts by Friday.
Raila has dispute the election results that showed President Uhuru Kenyatta was re-elected for a second term during the August 8 elections.
He argues that the IEBC altered the results in favour of Uhuru by inflating his votes.
On August 11, IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati declared Uhuru the winner of the polls with 8,203,290 votes against Raila's 6,762,224.