President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta in a past church session. [Daily Post]
Lawyers representing President Uhuru Kenyatta want five internal memos from IEBC wiped out from documents at the centre of a Supreme Court case challenging his win in the repeat presidential poll.
In their petition, two activists- Njonjo Mue and Khelef Khalifa-had filed five internal memos that tainted the stability of the IEBC to conduct a credible poll. The memos were circulated in local media after being leaked from the poll body.
In her submission on Tuesday, lawyer Melissa Ng'ania argued the memos were unlawfully acquired so they should not be in court records.
She stated that no request was made to IEBC prior to access to internal documents as required by law and if they were to be admissible then the case would be jeopardised.
However, the petitioners through lawyers Julie Soweto and Harun Ndubi, said the said documents are in the public domain so they should not be ignored.
Soweto said; "They have been circulated broadly. The documents are important. The arguments here cannot stand. Public interest outweighs the objection by the two.”
The counsel argued that the Wafula Chebukati led team did not deny the memos after they were leaked.
“Having been publicised in the electoral and the mainstream media, the IEBC did not object to them even in their proceedings," she noted suggesting that there was not justifiable ground to expunge the documents in question.
Chairman Wafula Chebukati issued a memo demanding that CEO Ezra Chiloba explain why some forms printed by Al Ghurair had no security features among numerous allegations on the secretariat’s failure to conduct the August poll in accordance to the required procedures.
President Kenyatta’s counsel Fred Ngatia also pleaded with the apex court to ignore some documents which were filed late by the petitioner. He argued that the annexures and the voluminous documents filed a day late should not be retained in the court record.
“I do not need to emphasise that the petition must be filed within seven days, a day which was to expire on the midnight of November 6,” Ngatia told the court.
The justice David Maraga led bench will listen to similar applications before the case kicks off.