Court of Appeal constitutes seven-judge bench for BBI appeal cases

Court of appeal President David Musinga takes an oath of the office at the Supreme Court Grounds on Friday, June 11,2021. [Collins Kweyu, Standard]

The President of the Court of Appeal has named seven judges to hear the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) Appeal cases.

This is after a five-judge bench of the High Court ruled against the BBI process terming it as ‘unconstitutional, null and void’ on Thursday, May 13.

The judges' decision was, however, appealed by interested parties.

The seven-judge bench will comprise of Court of Appeal President Daniel Musinga and Justices Roselyn Nambuye, Hannah Okwengu, Partick Kiage, Gatembu Kairu, Fatuma Sichale and Francis Tuiyott.

The bench will hear the cases for four days starting June 29 to July 2nd.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga picked six lawyers to appeal the High Court judgement that annulled the BBI process.

The duo formed a legal team, led by Attorney General Paul Kihara, that they hope will dismantle the ruling by the High Court judges and allow the BBI reggae to stay on. 

In the team to revive the BBI are Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto, former BBI joint secretary Paul Mwangi, members of the BBI committee of experts Prof Ben Sihanya, Prof Kibe Mungai and city lawyer Jackson Awele.

“Unless this application for stay of execution of the order is heard urgently, there is a real risk,” the AG’s application read.

BBI secretariat co-chairs Junet Mohamed and Dennis Waweru had vowed to appeal the case, accusing the judges of deliberately acting to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis and chaos through judicial activism.

“As law-abiding leaders, we respect the decision of the court. But we don’t agree with it. Consequently, we are setting up a legal team to look into and appeal the ruling,” Junet said.