Supreme battle: Lawyers who kept Kenyans glued to TV

It was a legal spectacle at the Supreme Court when unexpected crop of lawyers upstaged their seniors with crisp grasp of the law and incisive arguments that stole the show.

Whereas the country was waiting for a bombshell from the usual law gurus like senior counsels Prof Githu Muigai, James Orengo, Paul Muite, Fred Ngatia, Pheroze Nowrojee, Prof Tom Ojienda and Kioko Kilukumi, it was the juniors who unleashed the beast to advance their case.

Not that the senior counsels did not live to their billing of being the creme de la creme, but the juniors brought lively arguments to lift the gloom off the tough legal juggernaut unleashed by the senior bar.

It is not every day a lawyer gets the opportunity to argue a presidential election petition as the chance might come only once every five years and when it came, the new crop of learned friends grabbed the opportunity. Here are some of the new faces who livened up the petition proceedings:

Julie Soweto

She was one of the layers acting for Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua.

Her eloquence, charisma and charm wowed the court as she went about demonstrating how the IEBC system was allegedly infiltrated by foreigners and Forms 34A altered using same serial number from different counties.

It was from Ms Soweto's submissions that Venezuelan national Jose Camargo started trending when she showed a form on the IEBC portal with his name.

"From our demonstration, you can see that it was Jose Camargo who determined the president of Kenya. He is the person who was interfering with our election and when you ask about the smoking gun in our case, it was the Venezuelans," said Soweto.

Soweto is an alumnus of Kenya High School and has a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi and Master's in Law from the University of Pretoria.

She is the proprietor of Soweto and Company Advocates which she established in 2012 after working as an associate advocate at Siaya Governor James Orengo's law firm.

Soweto also argued that postponement of election in Kamaega, Mombasa and four constituencies made Ruto start the election with a upper hand since none of his strongholds was affected, and that the error was a wilful neglect by the chairman and the IEBC secretariat to ensure Raila's supporters in those areas do not turn up to vote.

She told the court that there were 33,208 votes which could not be accounted for, especially in areas perceived to be Ruto's stronghold.

Mahat Somane

Mr Somane was the shooting gun for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and would not take anything thrown at them lying down.

Somane passionately defended the commission as though he was one of their employees and when the Azimio team showed their website to demonstrate infiltration, he immediately rushed out to bring the original form.

He might be short of experience compared to his seniors who led the IEBC team but his excellent grasp of information and technology law might have informed the reason he was assigned to tackle the issues on uploading of Forms 34A, postponement of elections, vote discrepancies and irregularities that might have affected the final presidential results.

"What the petitioners presented to this court were mere falsified documents that did not originate from the IEBC. They cooked up lies and want the court to believe them when we have proved that the election was free, fair, credible and transparent," he said.

Somane has a Bachelor's degree in law from the University of Nairobi and two Master's degrees in law from Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School, respectively, which he achieved courtesy of a Fulbright scholarship.

Melissa Ng'ania

There was no doubt that Melissa Ng'ania had grown since her moment of fame during the 2017 presidential election when she was the youngest lawyer in the team representing President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In this petition, she showed more courage and did not blink an eye when facing the seven judges as part of the team of advocates defending President-elect William Ruto.

Being in a team that had a senior counsel, Ms Ng'ania was assigned the light role of dealing with issue number five that had been formulated by the Supreme Court judges.

The issue was whether there were discrepancies in presidential votes and other elective seats.

She also touched on the postponement of election in Kakamega and Mombasa counties, and submitted that the votes in those areas were counted and tabulated, and that no one is contesting the votes from those places.

Ngania's schooled in Uganda at the Tororo High School before proceeding to Makerere University for her Bachelors of Law degree.

Willis Otieno

Mr Otieno single-handedly carried the case of human rights activists Khelef Khalifa, George Osewe, Ruth Mumbi and Grace Kamau.

On a gloomy day when most of the lawyers had bored the court with immeasurable depth of big words, he lightened up the courtroom with analogies and powerful presentation that left his body soaking with sweat.

With his face was soaked in sweat, his passion, charisma and eloquence did not desert him as he bellowed his submissions which at times were interjected by Justice Smokin Wanjala, warning him not to stray.

Within hours of his submissions likening the conduct of IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to that of a person playing a game of poker to determine a winner, his analogy gained fame and started trending.

"Chebukati was playing a game which my grandmother used to call karafu (smuggling) or someone singing pinky pinky ponky, paka mielo disco (pinky pinky ponky, the cat is dancing in a disco)," said Otieno.

The lawyer is a partner at Ogola and Otieno Advocates where he is in charge of litigation, governance, public law, elections, constitutional and administrative law as well as political processes.

He has a Bachelor's of Law degree from Moi University and a Master's of Law degree from the University of Nairobi and were it not for the IEBC to reject the nomination of businessman Jimi Wanjigi as a presidential candidate, he would have also been on the ballot after Wanjigi nominated him as his running mate.

Jackson Awele

In four major cases in the country, Jackson Awele Onyango has cut a name of an avid and sharp litigator.

Awele has for the second time shown up for Raila Odinga by either arguing before the judges or being behind the thousands of documents filed before the Supreme Court alongside Arnold Oginga.

At 39 years, he has played in the league of senior lawyers such as Prof. Githu Muigai, James Orengo, Phillip Murgor and Fred Ngatia, Kioko Kilukumi but still manages to shine his light.

He has appeared in the Raila 2017 Presidential petition, he was a lead lawyer in the Huduma Namba case against the government and now he was in the Raila and Martha Karua case this year.

He argued about the scrutiny of ballot boxes that happened at the Supreme Court sub-registry housed at Milimani.

According to him, out of the 45 polling stations, his team focused on the qualitative aspect of the results and electoral materials deposited in the ballot boxes.

"We submit that you will find one QR code and one KIEM validation form that was found in the ballot submitted for scrutinizing. The question was where are they? In light of Ms Soweto's argument, your guess is as good as mine," he submitted.

Admitted to the bar in 2010, Awele is a qualified Advocate of the High Court of Kenya with over 11 years of experience in dispute resolution practice. He was instructed as a pupil at Kaplan & Stratton and upon admission to the bar started practice of law at the said firm and later at Oraro & Co from where he left to found his current private practice.

He had a stint in London understudying solicitors and Barristers at Clifford Chance LLP and One Essex Court Chambers respectively as the 2014 Kenya nominee of the prestigious ILFA secondment programme.

Awele has acted in high profile Dispute resolution matters including the successful 2017 Presidential Election Petition in which he was the Advocate on record for the successful petitioner Raila Odinga. In 2013 whilst an Associate at Oraro & Co., he participated in the 2013 election petition on behalf of Raila Odinga

Mr Awele was a core member of the 2022 presidential Election Petition team and was one of the key drafters, strategists and presenters in the said petition.