As he waits for the Senate to rule on his impeachment, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is resolved to launch a legal defence to keep his job. To stop being removed from office, he has put up a formidable legal team. This comes after the impeachment motion received support from 281 MPs on Tuesday, over the 233 MP threshold required by the constitution for the motion to proceed to the Senate. Given the gravity of the accusations made against him, Gachagua’s legal team has proposed that the matter be sent to the Supreme Court. Under the direction of seasoned attorneys Paul Muite and Fred Ngatia, the team requests that Chief Justice Martha Koome appoint a three-judge bench to hear the case.
“Numbers in the National Assembly are not the issue. Attorney Paul Muite asserted that there must be evidence of a flagrant breach of the constitution. He emphasised that the Kenyan people, who choose the country’s president and vice president, hold absolute sovereign authority under Article 1 of the country’s constitution. Reports state that Deputy Rigathi Gachagua plans to hire about 20 legal firms to begin a legal defence against his removal.
Likewise, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has been placed under a stay of action in the legal dispute over the deputy president’s dismissal. This is in response to the Senate’s plans to hold hearings on the impeachment resolution against DP on Wednesday, March 16, and Thursday, March 17. The matter will not be heard in a separate committee, but rather in plenary. After Minority Leader Edwin Sifuna objected to the idea of having a separate committee consider the matter, the Senate agreed to convene in plenary so that all 47 Senators could hear the case against Gachagua.
By Kenyans