William Ruto sacks Masit as she mulls appeal of decision

Embattled IEBC Commissioner Irene Cherop Masit when she appeared before Justice and Legal Affairs Committee on August 24, 2021, for vetting. [David Njaaga, Standard] President William Ruto did not wait for the 30-window afforded to him to sack electoral commissioner Irene Masit following a recommendation by a tribunal he formed to investigate her. Instead, Ruto sacked her on the first day of the 30 days, citing the binding nature of the recommendation, and gravity of the decision. Masit was still mulling how to appeal the decision by the tribunal chaired by Justice Aggrey Muchelule when the President struck. In the report, the tribunal indicted Masit on two grounds of serious violation of the constitution and the law as well as well gross misconduct. It rejected the third ground of incompetence. "The appointment and tenure in office of Irene Cherop Masit as member IEBC is terminated with immediate effect, " a Gazette Notice shared by State House Spokesman Hussein Mohamed said. Sources told The Standard that Masit was proposing to file a judicial review of the matter on eight of the nine salient issues singled out by her counsel Donald Kipkorir. On the first issue, Masit believes the tribunal misdirected itself to revisit a matter which had conclusively been handled by the Supreme Court, which had the exclusive and original jurisdiction to do so. Electronic evidence Masit, through Kipkorir, told the tribunal as much in her written submissions. She said the tribunal was reopening matters already decided in the presidential petition filed by Azimio leader Raila Odinga and consolidated with several others. The second issue relates to substance of the evidence on the basis of which she was indicted by the tribunal. The evidence entailed witness accounts of the events at Bomas National Tallying Centre, Serena Hotel and Yaya Hotel. During the tribunal hearings, Masit did not adduce evidence to controvert the claims by the witnesses adduced by the lead counsel for the tribunal. She believed, and still believes, the evidence was hearsay and lacked probative value. Tied to this is the third issue of the form of the evidence deployed against her. She argued that the electronic evidence tendered was without a certificate as per the law and should have been disregarded. This includes the video recordings of her arrival at Yaya and the recordings of the press conference at Serena, both which were used to nail her. Of Yaya, the tribunal found that the evidence availed established that she was politically biased and of Serena it said she absconded duty. During the cross-examination of witnesses, Masit said the CCTV footages had been obtained illegally and should not have been admitted in the first place. Masit also believes that the standard of proof adopted by the tribunal was wrong. She told the tribunal that the matter of impeachment of a commissioner is a criminal proceeding whose standard of proof is of beyond reasonable doubt. The tribunal had, however, adopted a standard of proof which was a middle ground of reasonable doubt of criminal proceedings and balance of probabilities of civil proceedings. She believes the lowering of the standard adversely affected her rights, making her an easy catch. Masit also said the tribunal members were biased against her on account of their active association with the ruling party, UDA. The sixth issue relates to credibility of some of the witnesses, like former IEBC chairman, Wafula Chebukati, and the CEO Marjan Hussein. Masit believes the pair were tainted witnesses on the basis of past determinations which found that they were running commission affairs in exclusion of other commissioners. The last two issues relate to appreciation of the terms serious violations of the constitution and gross misconduct. She already won on the incompetence claim, with the tribunal noting that she had demonstrated a streak of competence in the run up to the election.

William Ruto sacks Masit as she mulls appeal of decision

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