New date set for Siaya exhumation hearing
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Judge Roselyne Aburili said is to allow the government file a response and also to have the county health department enjoined in the suit.
The judge said the constitutional petition raised fundamental human rights issues that would need to be canvassed by the parties.
The High Court Friday adjourned the hearing of a case seeking the exhumation of James Oyugi Onyango’s body by his family to April 24.
Judge Roselyne Aburili said is to allow the government file a response and also to have the county health department enjoined in the suit.
The judge said the constitutional petition raised fundamental human rights issues that would need to be canvassed by the parties.
The State, represented by lawyer Janet Langa, asked for more time to be able to file a response to the petition filed by two members of the family of the former Kenya Ports Authority employee.
The Judge has also directed the petitioners to amend the petition so as to enjoin the county of Siaya's health department in the suit and file the amended petition within three days.
The Law Society of Kenya which is represented in the matter by lawyer SM Onyango has been enjoined in the suit as an interested party.
At a sitting at the Siaya Law Courts on Friday, Judge Aburili directed the Ministry of Health to file their response within three days upon being served by the petitioners.
Onyango’s family has protested the manner in which the deceased whose death was attributed to Covid-19 was buried on Sunday night at his Ukwala home and are seeking to give him a decent send-off following the incident that caused public uproar.
His son and sister moved to court on behalf of the family, seeking orders to have a postmortem done on the body after exhumation to establish the cause of his death.
In the petition filed under a certificate of urgency days after the shocking burial, the deceased's sister Mrs Joan Akoth Ajwan'g and son Mr Brian Thomas Oyugi hope a postmortem examination will help them rule out the possibility that an earlier minor accident the deceased and part of his family were involved in on their way to Siaya from Mombasa might have caused his death.
There has been uproar over the shocking burial of Mr Onyango who is said to have succumbed to Covid-19 last Friday and was buried in a body bag in a shallow grave at his Kamalunga village home in Ukwala last Sunday night under tight security.
The state counsel while seeking an adjournment told the Court that the petition dated April 16 was received on Thursday, hence they didn’t have sufficient time to obtain documentation from the ministry of health to file a response.
The petitioners' advocate Mr Fred Edward Ambala did not object the adjournment, but asked the court to ensure that the prayers sought by the respondents don’t delay the hearing of the petition, considering it involves a body that continues to decompose.
