• PSC, ORPP, Parliament, Attorney General, Jubilee Party, the Senate, and Treasury CS are respondents in the matter.
• ANC, Ford-K, Narc-K, Kanu, ODM, Wiper, Auditor General, LSK, Parties Tribunal chair, and ICJ are interest parties.
Image: WILFRED NYANGARESI
Jubilee Party's Mombasa secretary Patrick Kabundu and three other petitioners want court to stop the ongoing recruitment of the registrar of political parties and three deputies.
The petitioners want the courts to stop Parliament and the Public Service Commission (PSC) from conducting the selection. They argue that the recruitment is in breach of the Constitution because the law was changed illegally in 2016 to incorporate PSC.
“The matter is coming up for inter-party hearing today before Justice James Makau. Everybody has been served,” Kabundu told the Star on Monday.
Kabundu, alongside Caleb Mutuma, Anthony Fondo and Mutei Caleb, says that PSC's involvement amounts to the Executive influencing the recruitment, hence usurps the offices’ independence.
The Jubilee official further argues that acting registrar Ann Nderitu’s actions are illegal as her appointment is not provided for in the Political Parties Act.
“Section 33 of the Act has no reference of an acting registrar,” he said, adding that former registrar Lucy Ndung’u should have waited until a substantive registrar is appointed.
“The ORPP is acting without jurisdiction. It is illegal that Ms Nderitu is giving out orders and carrying out the duties of a registrar.”
Kabundu says that it was wrong for the PSC to handpick Nderitu from the IEBC where she was head of voter registration to take up the job.
“Those actions have made it hard to implement the enforcement of the amended Political Parties Act, 2007 independent of controls, regulations, and interference of the Executive.”
“This makes us believe the PSC has predetermined who’d be the registrar and three deputies but is doing PR to hoodwink the public they are conducting genuine recruitment,” he said.
Kabundu avers that the law introducing PSC was passed after the one year provided by the Constitution.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration was thus expected to implement the Act as was gazetted, by March 2014.
The PSC was removed in a process initiated by former Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo in the 10th Parliament under the National Accord.
Midiwo proposed a select committee comprising of a chairperson nominated by the President; nominees by ICPAK, the LSK, and Association of Professional Societies; a man and woman by National Assembly and Senate respectively.
However, it was until September 2018 that PSC advertised the vacancies. The posts are yet to be filled one and a half years later.
“The Jubilee Party leader erred in law by failing to perform his constitutional duty by allowing the registrar to continue remaining on acting capacity.”
The question Kabundu wants answered is what happened to the nominees who applied for the job as advertised in 2018 and why the May 2020 ad was run yet the office was vacant for almost 15 months.
The petitioner has also criticised Parliament for amending the Political Parties Act in 2016 without consideration of whether that of 2012 was implemented.
“This was done to suit self-interest against the will of the Kenyan public,” Kabundu argues in his submissions.
He says that by removing the professional bodies, questions of law arise as the 10th Parliament removed PSC on the belief it could be influenced by the Executive.
Kabundu told the Star that he believes the country’s political order is in limbo following failure to follow the rules.
“The Political Parties Act is enforced by the registrar. If you put a weak person, automatically you have the challenges like we face in Jubilee today.”
“All political parties are in a total mess because the registrar cannot effect any order. A substantive RPP has powers to summon parties and tell them to put their offices in order.”
The petitioners further hold that this is the reason parties have continued to operate in breach of the law with a lack of branch networking scuttling flow of party cash to members.
“If all the professional bodies had sat down and appointed serious people, the mess in political parties will go. This is since if they (ORPP) deregister a party, it cannot go anywhere,” Kabundu said.