Lawyers cast vote for Judicial Service Commission representative

What you need to know:

  • Law Society of Kenya elections are underway in 28 polling stations nationwide.
  • The lawyers are electing a male representative to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
  • Whoever wins will serve as a JSC commissioner for five years up to 2024.

Election for the lawyers’ male representative to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is currently underway in 28 polling stations across the country.

Some 10,185 lawyers, consisting of those with practising certificates as at December 31, 2018, as well as those who, though they may not have the document, have applied and paid for the 2019 licence as at March 9 are eligible to cast their votes.

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) says that the “electors can vote from any of the centres regardless of where they are based.”

Incumbent Prof Tom Ojienda, the founding chair of Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) Macharia Njeru, and lawyer Charles Ongoto are in the race to sit in JSC which oversights the judiciary and recruits judges.

DRAMATIC CAMPAIGN

Human rights lawyer Gathii Irungu withdrew from the contest on the eve of the election but his name remains in the ballot papers as his withdrawal came late in the day after voting materials had been procured.

The campaigns leading to Thursday’s election has been marked with drama.

From the fallout during the nomination which is still a subject of litigation in court, overt State interference, unprecedented mobilisation for nomination rule change during the Society’s annual general meeting on March 30, the lawyers' election has also become one of the most expensive for the candidates.

There is also grumbling over regional balance at the judiciary. As of today, four of the members of JSC out of 11 come from the same region, central Kenya, a fact that could work against some candidates.

CHALLENGERS

In the campaigns, Mr Njeru has been tagged as a ‘State project’ while Prof Ojienda has portrayed himself as being fought against by the State.

“What lawyers must look for on Thursday when voting is to ensure they do not enhance the number that the executive has in the JSC. They already have four. If you make a mistake and elect a member who is close to the government then you will have added a fifth member to the number for the government,” said Prof Ojienda during their recent televised debate.

But Mr Njeru has dismissed the accusations of being the government’s preferred candidate as propaganda by “people who have nothing else that they can point out against Macharia Njeru.”

“I have a track record. Let us not use somebody’s name to say that that is a government project just because my name is Macharia. But I have a clean track record. Others, I can tell you for a fact, don’t have the same,” he said during the debate, suggesting that opponents are ethnically profiling him.

Whoever wins will serve as a JSC commissioner for five years up to 2024.