LSK president Isaac Okero (L )and vice president Faith Waigwa. [Photo/Nation]
The Law Society of Kenya vice president Faith Waigwa has differed with the society's president Isaac Okero over Supreme Court registrar Esther Nyaiyaki probe.The LSK boss had written to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) faulting the agency over the probe against Ms Nyaiyaki.However, Waigwa has written to EACC claiming Okero did not consult LSK Council Members before writing the letter and therefore the position taken by the president is personal.Below is a letter she wrote to EACC Chairperson Eliud Wabukala."Dear Archbishop (Rtd) Eliud Wabukala,I write to you in my capacity as the Vice-President of the Law Society of Kenya, my attention having been drawn to a letter dated 3rd October 2017 addressed to you by Mr Isaac Okero, the President of the LSK, which has received wide coverage in the media.In the said letter, Mr 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, Ms Esther Nyaiyaki, regarding a scrutiny exercise undertaken in the course of the Presidential Election Petition.
Mr Okero predicates his assertion on the grounds 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.
I should point out that it is unusual for the LSK leadership to take contradictory views on a matter, but I am compelled to do so in this instance for the following reasons:
i) Mr Okero's letter is not common ground among LSK Council Members who were not consulted before the letter was written, sent to you and shared for dissemination by the media.
ii) The 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 at 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.
iii) It is thus of singular importance 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.
iv) In discharging this statutory mandate and, as the LSK draws its membership from lawyers of all shades of political persuasion, it is expected that the Society will be impartial, objective, true to the law and shall not take partisan or sectarian sides, especially in political matters.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case as this issue has not been deliberated on by the LSK Council and a position arrived at."