The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) yesterday threatened to petition parliament not to clear Cabinet Secretary (CS) nominees with integrity issues.

The lawyers’ body, while questioning the motive behind the withdrawal of corruption cases against high-profile individuals, including nominees for positions of CS by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), asked Parliament to uphold the Leadership and Integrity Act while vetting the nominees.

LSK President Eric Theuri stated the DPP owes Kenyans an explanation for the dropping of cases facing various suspects.

 “The profile of the suspects invites significant public interest as to the motives of the discontinuation of the cases and further poses serious credibility concerns in the investigative capacity of our institutions,” said Theuri.

The LSK President said there was a need to examine the reasons for the withdrawals with a view to determine whether indeed they are cogent.

“If they are not, the only reasonable presumption would be that the intention to discontinue those cases was to clear the paths for these candidates to get into public service,” he said.

In the past one week, the DPP has dropped charges against Agriculture CS nominee Mithika Linturi and his counterpart Aisha Jumwa paving the way for their vetting by the National Assembly.

Corruption cases

The DPP Noordin Haji on Wednesday withdrew a Sh19 million corruption case relating to the misappropriation of CDF funds against Public Service and Gender CS nominee Aisha Jumwa.

He also withdrew charges against former Kenya Power Managing Director Ben Chumo, his successor Ken Tarus and nine others in the Sh400 million faulty transformers case. The LSK President yesterday said they will take a memorandum to Parliament that even after the withdrawal of the criminal cases, they are not exonerated.

“That is our position that even the withdrawal of charges does not exonerate them, because they have not gone through a criminal trial to exonerate themselves, we still believe those matters are active and alive and for that reason, those candidates should not be cleared,” said Theuri.

“We understand that candidates have a presumption of innocence but unless we uphold the provisions of the constitution in terms of leadership and integrity, then we might as well proclaim that chapter 6 is dead,” he added.

Dramatic situations

Theuri while calling out DPP Haji noted that some of the suspects were arrested in somewhat dramatic situations with the media press releases as to the reasons for their arrest and arraignment in court, yet, the discontinuation of charges have been done silently and without any press release from the DPP

“The Law Society is also aware of the rather frosty relationships between the Former Director of Criminal Investigations and the DPP and the sustained efforts by the DCI to prosecute cases without the consent of the DPP. The society calls on the DPP to publicly reveal the reasons for the discontinuation of the cases to the public if we are to restore confidence in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions,” he said.

He similarly called on the Judiciary and especially the magistrates handling the cases to insist on the DPP providing credible and cogent reasons before allowing the discontinuation of the charges.

“This is to assert the independence of the Judiciary and prevent the court’s being an arena for settling scores and abuse of judicial time and resources,” he said.

Shortlisted candidates

The lawyers’ lobby also put the Public Service Commission (PSC) on the spot for expanding the list by another 108 candidates in the recently shortlisted 477 candidates for Permanent Secretaries.

According to LSK, this was done without any credible expiations and in a manner that speaks to taking instructions from other quarters thereby rendering the ongoing interviews a sham and public relations exercise. LSK also took issue with comments and declarations made by the Deputy President about evictions, that they shall only be enforced after clearance by the sub-county Security Committee.

“This amounts to subjecting court decisions to the whims of the Security Committee and renders the court adjudicative process ineffective. Ultimately this will encourage a culture of land grabbing and impunity and is a serious threat to the rule of law,” stated Theuri. The LSK President noted that the Laws of the country have adequate provisions on how evictions are to be carried out and the courts have also delivered several decisions on the manner of carrying out evictions.

“The roadside declarations by the Deputy President cannot, therefore, substitute the law and we urge the Deputy President to withdraw his remarks and uphold the law and the constitution which he took an oath to protect,” he said.