NASA leader Raila Odinga.Photo/update.co.ke
It has emerged that the National Super Alliance made mistakes in filing its petition challenging President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election at the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court registrar Esther Nyaiyaki said on Monday that the opposition six additional documents were submitted by opposition lawyers after the Friday’s midnight deadline.
Mr Odinga’s lawyers presented additional volumes — 60, 61, 62 and 63 — on Sunday 20th instead.
The Supreme Court registrar, in a Nation report, said the documents were mistakenly stamped as having been received on August 18.
“The same have since been rectified to reflect the actual date they were filed, that is, 20th August, 2017,” Ms Nyaiyaki said
Further, Mrs Nyaiyaki said that three key documents were missing from the NASA’s petition.
“As at 21st August, 2017, our records are still missing one copy of volume 31, 55 and 56,” Ms Nyaiyaki wrote to NASA lawyers.
“Our client is concerned as to why documents are still being filed way out of time,” they wrote to Mr Odinga’s lawyers.
Mr Odinga’s lawyer Paul Mwangi however dismissed any possibility of contention.
Speaking to the local daily later on, he said the additional documents were not primary evidences as such but mere annexures to key documents submitted on the material Friday.
“They are Forms 34 A. They are not primary documents,” Mr Mwangi said adding that “a document is deemed to have been filed when it was paid for and, in this case, that was done before Friday midnight.”
“That is the legal position.”
In the 2013 presidential petition, the then Raila Odinga’s Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) suffered a blow after the Supreme Court threw out a 900-page affidavit on grounds that it was filed out of time.