AG Muigai blasts new lawyers, says they dont recognise procedures

Attorney General Githu Muigai has launched a scathing attack on a section of lawyers who do not appreciate and follow the rules and standards of arguing a case in court.

Speaking while making his submissions at the Supreme Court as an interested party on Thursday, the AG rued the fact that the law profession is now faced with the difficulty of a new crop of litigators who do not recognise civil procedures.

“They don’t recognise the evidence act, and they don’t recognise any procedural legislation. These are what the old professor’s used to call ‘adjectival law’. It has been thrown out of the window,” said Muigai.

In a bid to annihilate two election petitions that seek to nullify President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win in the October 26 repeat presidential election, Prof. Muigai said that the petitions “have not met the burden of proof and are based on mere litany of complaints”.

“We just have a litany of complaints; policemen did this, protesters were all over, commotion between police and protesters… and all these are now paraded as evidence even with no affidavit sworn by any person. A non-bear allegation becomes the basis of petition,” argued the AG.

Muigai took issue with a number of issues that he says, have no basis in an election petition including, but not limited, to complaints of government officials participating in election campaigns.

According to him, it was ignorant for the petitioners to raise the issue before the court yet the Supreme Court in 2013 clarified the matter.

“This matter was dealt with by this court in 2013. You told us to stop raising matters that are known to make their way up from the High Court to the Court of Appeal. We will not assume jurisdiction to bypass that process,” added Muigai.