Kerubo’s lawyer vows to fight lock-out

The lawyer locked out of the hearings of a tribunal investigating assault claims against suspended Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza is vowing to fight to the end— like he has done since he was a youngster.

Mr Irungu Kang’ata was locked out when the tribunal investigating Ms Baraza over claims of assaulting security guard Rebecca Kerubo started hearing the matter early this week at KICC in Nairobi.

On Tuesday, he was informed that his colleague, Mr George Maosa and him were not required to represent Ms Kerubo at the tribunal because she was a witness.

But he remains adamant and insists that Ms Kerubo has a constitutional right, just like the suspended DCJ, to legal representation.

“This is being unrealistic. While the DCJ is being represented by three lawyers, they now don’t want to allow Kerubo an equal right to be represented by a lawyer of her choice,” he says.

Mr Kang’ata’s life has been full of ups and downs, and chronology of how he has fought to join the bar.

While a pupil at Vidhu Ramji Township (then called Murang’a Township) in 1991, he was suspended while in Standard Six for allegedly organising a strike.

In the same year, a young Kang’ata joined the Saba Saba riots by pelting shop owners, who used to open shops in defiance to calls for strike, with stones.

When Kenneth Matiba, who was agitating for multi-party democracy, arrived in Murang’a from a London trip to start his presidential campaign, the young boy fired up by Matiba activism ran away from school to join the campaigns. His teachers punished him for that.

Still while in primary school, his love for reggae music forced his parents to drop his baptismal name, Francis, that he considered as being babylonic.

Despite all that, he managed to score 527 marks out of 700 in KCPE and was admitted to Thika High.

He was back at his old game in Thika High where he started writing anonymous letters to the headmaster expressing complaints of students. When the school administration traced the source of the letters and found him responsible, he was expelled while in Form Two.

He was also accused

Apart from the charge of inciting students, he was also accused of being a member of a sect known as Rastafarian, whose mission was to make all students love reggae.

But not willing to give up, he complained to the District Education Office that referred his case to the school’s board of governors, which gave him a second chance.

He did his KCSE in 1999 and scored an A minus, after which he joined the University of Nairobi to pursue a law degree.

Mr Kang’ata set history as the first, First-Year student to be elected as the vice-chairman of the Students Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu) and broke history in the same position at the Kenya Law Students Society.

In 2000, he was involved in the controversial anti-parallel programme strike that paralysed studies, arguing the programme— which allowed students who were not government sponsored to pay fee for their university education— was an anti-poor scheme.

He first went to court being represented pro-bono by the current Law Society of Kenya (LSK) chairman Eric Mutua challenging the legality of the programmes.

On the hearing date, the case failed to kick off leading to students’ riots in Nairobi and the university was closed indefinitely. Consequently, he was suspended together with other 56 students.

He sued for reinstatement, at first winning only for the University lawyer (Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo) to get an interpretation of the ruling in its favour.

While serving his suspension, in the 2002 General Election, Mr Kang’ata, then aged 22, was voted overwhelmingly as the Councillor for Central Ward in Murang’a— becoming the youngest councillor in Kenya at that time.

He was readmitted to the university in 2003 under the Narc Government amnesty for expelled and suspended students.

In 2007, he became an advocate. Some of the popular cases he has handled since include one in which Land Minister James Orengo was told to pay his creditor cash, and that of Mr Thuo Kigera against “his father” Njenga Karume, where the teacher wanted a piece of Mr Karume’s vast estate.

Mr Kang’ata,32, says that he will fight until Ms Kerubo gets the representation that she legally deserves.

He says he will file a complaint with LSK to protest the tribunal’s decision to lock them out of the proceedings.