Lawyers term Miguna deportation 'disastrous'

Siaya Senator James Orengo speaks during a Nasa rally in Baba Dogo Sports grounds, Nairobi, on February 4, 2018. He has protested the ejection of lawyer Miguna Miguna from the country. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By  Silas Apollo

What you need to know:

  • The Interior Ministry said Mr Miguna renounced his Kenyan roots and failed to reapply for citizenship.
  • Mr Miguna was put on a flight headed for Amsterdam, then Canada, on Tuesday night.

Legal experts and lawyers on Wednesday poked holes at the reasons given by the government for kicking out National Super Alliance activist Miguna Miguna.

The Ministry of Interior was accused of using a technicality in the law to eject Mr Miguna, even as the government remained adamant that it acted legally.

Siaya Senator James Orengo, former Law Society of Kenya chief executive officer Apollo Mboya, Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo Jnr and Mr Donald Korir said the reasons given by the ministry could not stand in a court of law.

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Mr Orengo, who represented Mr Miguna at the Milimani Law Courts, argued that citizenship by birth is irrevocable. 

“Mr Miguna was born in Kisumu. It is a tragedy citizens can feel helpless even when they come to court,” he said.

CITIZENSHIP
Senator Kilonzo said that if violation of the principles of fundamental rights are not ended, “we might as well pack the Constitution in a shelf and start using scrolls”.

Mr Miguna was put on a flight headed for Amsterdam, then Canada, on Tuesday night.

He moved to Canada in 1988 after being imprisoned and tortured by the Daniel arap Moi Kanu regime.

The Interior Ministry said Mr Miguna, who also has a Canadian passport, renounced his Kenyan roots and failed to reapply for citizenship.

“Miguna renounced his Kenyan citizenship years back, acquired Canadian citizenship and never bothered to reclaim Kenyan citizenship in the legally prescribed manner,” Mr Mwenda Njoka, the ministry's spokesman, said on Twitter.

NEW CONSTITUTION
Earlier, a top government official told the Nation that when Mr Miguna was arrested, the Canadian Government wrote to Kenya expressing concerns that its citizen was being harassed and wanted him back.

The decision by the government mirrors an argument by then Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution chairman Charles Nyachae who said Kenyans who took citizenship of other countries before the 2010 Constitution was promulgated must reapply for citizenship.

But Mr Mboya and Mr Korir said Mr Miguna was Kenyan by birth.

“You don’t deport your own national,” Mr Mboya said.

Mr Miguna denied renouncing his Kenyan citizenship.

“I have never renounced my Kenyan citizenship and will never,” he said in a statement from Amsterdam.

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