The Supreme Court has made a new decision regarding the hearing of the petition challenging President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election.
The Office of the Registrar has announced that the Court will hold its pre-trial conference on Raila Odinga's presidential petition on Saturday from 7:00 pm.
The Conference will be used to identify issues for determination in the petition and come up with the rules of engagement that include the time allocated to each counsel.
The notice urges all lawyers to appear before the Court fully robed.
"Take notice that the date of the pre-trial conference has been fixed on Saturday the 26th day of August 2017 at 7:00 pm before the Supreme Court of Kenya," the notice read in part.
The move to push the hearing to late in the evening is believed to be a plan to accommodate Chief Justice David Maraga who was very categorical that he cannot attend Court on Saturday which is his Sabbath Day.
In the SDA calendar, Sabbath begins on Friday evening at 6:00 pm and ends at 6:00 pm the following day.
This means that having the sitting at 7:00 pm on Saturday will not affect the CJ's arrangement as it is not considered to be part of the Sabbath.
During his interview for the CJ position last year, Maraga publicly declared that he was a staunch Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) faithful who does not work on Saturday.
Justice Maraga noted that as the CJ he could not compromise his going to church on Saturday for work.
“It would be very difficult for me to sit on a Saturday to hear a case.
“I would rather talk with my colleagues in the court to accommodate me and exempt me from sitting if the hearing extends to a Saturday," he stated during the interviews.
The law dictates that the court must conduct the pretrial conference on the eighth day after the filing of the petition by the aggrieved parties, after which the hearing would then commence the following day.
The outcome of the petition should be determined within 14 days (September 1, 2017) from the day of filing.
