IEBC lawyers accuse Raila team of filing some petition papers past deadline

 

Nasa lawyer with documents which they were filing at the Supreme court for the election Petition on 18th August 2017. [PHOTO: OLIVER ANANDA/Standard]

Lawyers representing the electoral commission and the Opposition clashed on Monday following claims that the latter filed evidence on the presidential election petition beyond the stipulated time.

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) lawyer Kamau Karori wrote to the National Super Alliance (NASA) team protesting that they were still filing evidence at the Supreme Court on Sunday, long past the Friday night deadline.

"Upon inquiring from the Supreme Court, we were advised that you were still filing court documents as at midday today (Sunday). Our client is concerned as to why documents are still being filed way out of time," Mr Karori wrote in the letter dated August 20.

The letter was addressed to Murumba & Awele Advocates, the law firm representing NASA leader Raila Odinga who has challenged the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

"By a copy of this letter, we are requesting the Registrar of the Supreme Court to confirm the documents which are being filed this long after the deadline for filing," added Karori, who alongside lawyer Paul Nyamodi will represent IEBC.

NASA lawyer Paul Mwangi termed the protests by IEBC side shows, adding that as of yesterday they had not received any letter concerning the matter.

"We have not received any letter from them. We don't know what they are claiming," Mr Mwangi told The Standard yesterday.

He said they filed papers on Friday and that IEBC should concentrate on preparing its defence.

"We filed publicly, the documents were accepted publicly, and this was seen by all people. These are side shows. They ought to concentrate on replying to the case instead of these allegations," Mwangi added.

Reached further for comment, Karori said the contents of the letter were self-explanatory and that he was standing by them.

"The letter is clear and they have not replied to us," he replied.

But The Standard has established that NASA filed four volumes of court papers at the Supreme Court registry on Sunday. In a letter written to Murumba & Awele Advocates yesterday, court registrar Esther Nyaiyaki refers to the filings on August 20 and writes that although they were "mistakenly" stamped August 18, the changes have been effected to reflect August 20 as the actual date of submission.

Missing volumes

"On August 18, 2017, the Supreme Court registry received two complete sets of 59 volumes of your petition. On August 20, 2017, your office submitted to the Supreme Court registry six further sets of the missing volumes. As at August 21, 2017, our record are still missing one copy of volume 31, 55 and 56.

"On August 20, 2017, you presented volumes 60, 61, 62 and 63, which were mistakenly stamped August 18, 2017. The same have been rectified to reflect the actual date they were filed, that is August 20, 2017. Kindly note that this date is deemed as actual date of filing volumes 60, 61, 62 and 63," Ms Nyaiyaki wrote.

The letter is copied to Nyamodi & Company Advocates and Iseme Kamau & Maema Advocates, who are representing IEBC, the first respondent to the petition. Also copied is Ogetto, Otachi & Company Advocates, representing Uhuru, the third respondent.