Law Society of Kenya (LSK) Vice President Faith Waigwa during a recent admission of Advocates to The Bar at Supreme Court Grounds in Nairobi. [Photo: lsk.or.ke]The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) Vice-President Faith Waigwa has sharply differed with her senior Isaac Okero over a letter addressed to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Chair Eliud Wabukala.
In the said letter dated October 3, 2017, Okero asserts that the EACC has no authority whatsoever to conduct or undertake investigations in respect of allegations made against the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Esther Nyaiyaki, regarding a scrutiny exercise undertaken in the course of the Presidential Election Petition, reports the Star.
Okero states that such investigations are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Judicial Service Commission and that the commencement of investigations by the EACC is an affront to the independence of the Judiciary.However, Waigwa in a letter published in the Friday Star and addressed to Wabukala points out that though it is unusual for the LSK leadership to take contradictory views on a matter, she is compelled to do so in this instance for the following four reasons.First, Waigwa says Okero's letter is not common ground among LSK council members 'who were not consulted before the letter was written, sent to Wabukala and shared for dissemination by the media.Second, she states LSK is not only a professional body that represents advocates in this country, but also a statutory body established under the provisions of The Law Society of Kenya Act, 2014 with the objects set out in Section 4 of the Act, of, among other objects, protecting the public in matters ancillary to the law and assisting the Government and the Courts in matters relating to legislation and the administration of justice.Third, Waigwa says that it is important that statements emanating from the LSK leadership on matters of law and issues of critical public interest and importance be factual and the culmination of deliberations by council members and even the general membership in the spirit of stakeholder participation that is now central to all statutory bodies in our current constitutional dispensation.Finally, she asserts that it is expected of LSK to be impartial, objective, true to the law and should not take partisan or sectarian sides, especially in political matters.