With the high court ruling that President Uhuru Kenyatta initiated the building bridges initiative, handshake partner Raila Odinga distanced himself and the president from the BBI.
“A popular initiative and we want to reiterate that, starts at the point in which the promoter having generated an idea has reduced that idea into a bill,” said Senior Counsel Otiende Amollo.
“Through his lawyer Otiende Omollo, Raila argued that Suna East Member of Parliament Junet Mohammed and former Dagoreti Mp Dennis Waweru are the sole promoters of the BBI.
“They wrote to IEBC and said we have developed a bill, We want to collect signatures, can you guide us? The IEBC accepted them as the promoters, not anyone else. They were authorized to collect signatures which they did,” said Senior Counsel Otiende Amollo.
Otiende Omollo told the court that the law does not bar the president from supporting a referendum initiative.
“But more importantly, my Lord which was not considered by the court is a political right under article 28 1C. It allows any person and every citizen of the right to campaign for a political party or cause” said Senior Counsel Otiende Amollo.
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During the morning session, the IEBC which is faulting the high court’s ruling that the commission can legally operate with five commissioners cited the law as the basis for minimum number of three commissioners as adequate Quorum.
“The impune findings run fall of a subsisting decision in realm of a competent constitutional court,” said Former Attorney General Githu Muigai.
The IEBC’s role, the court was told, was very verifying 1 million voters and not signatures.
The constitution says we shall verify that the initiative, not the signatures, verified that the initiative is supported by at least 1 million registered voters. If it is a question of for instance looking at verifying the signatures, perhaps we would have said the best institution would be the DCI,” said a lawyer.
With the appellant’s case done, attention now shifts to parties opposed to the BBI among them activist David Ndii, the Law Society of Kenya and Katiba Institute.
