Presiding judge Justice Joel Ngugi gave the orders on Tuesday when parties appeared before a three judge-bench/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, June 27 – The hearing of the case contesting the award of Sh 2.5 billion ballot printing tender to Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing will begin Friday.
Presiding judge Justice Joel Ngugi gave the orders on Tuesday when parties appeared before a three judge-bench also comprising of Justices Joseph Mativo and George Odunga who were appointed by Chief Justice David Maraga to hear the judicial review filled by the National Super Alliance (NASA).
“The highlighting of submissions is scheduled for Friday. The applicant and the respondent will have 45 minutes to highlight and 15 minutes to respond. All interested parties will have 30 minutes and all written submissions will not be longer than 20 pages,” Justice Ngugi directed.
The counsel for the opposition alliance – Senator James Orengo – had in the session pleaded for the matter to be heard on Friday in order to provide time for legal teams representing the applicant (NASA), the respondent (IEBC) and interested parties which include presidential aspirant Ekuru Aukot(Thirdway Alliance), the Al Ghurair printing firm, the Attorney General and Jubilee Party to go through written submissions ahead of the hearing.
“We had a proposal particularly because some of the pleadings were submitted in the morning (Tuesday) and there have been no formal exchanges, we suggest that we file our submission by the close of the day Wednesday as well as any party supporting the application,” he said.
“The respondents and other interested parties, we propose can file submissions by the end of the day on Thursday and that we appear to highlight our submissions on Friday,” Orengo prayed.
Orengo’s requested was however contested by the counsel for the electoral body and that representing the Jubilee Party, both pushing for Thursday saying the matter needed to be expedited.
“To give them the remainder of the day today (Tuesday), the whole of tomorrow (Wednesday) for them to do written submissions is to give them too much time. Let them do all their papers by the end of the day and serve them appropriately because what happens is that there is a lot of filing but not serving,” Fred Ngatia, counsel for the Jubilee Party argued.
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