Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i and his Information Communication and Technology (ICT) counterpart, Joe Mucheru, suffered their first loss on Friday in the media shutdown case after the High Court rejected an application seeking to expunge the contempt of court case.
Judge Chacha Mwita made this directive after Communication Authority (CA) sought to have the contempt of court application removed from the media shutdown case.
Activist Okiya Omtatah had moved to court seeking to have the two government officials cited for contempt of court after they ignored the orders to restore signals of TV stations.
[caption caption="Okiya Omtatah"]
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The activist also wanted Sam Iteere (PS ICT), Karanja Kibicho (PS Internal Security), Kamau Thuge (PS Treasury), CA directors including the Chairman of the board directors, Ben Ngene Gituku, be cited for contempt.
While issuing the directive, Justice Mwita noted that the Government authorities could not willfully disobey orders or choose to comply with them and later come to court to purport full compliance.
“The court would want to hear the alleged technical hitches which resulted in noncompliance with the court orders”, he stated.
In its defence, CA, through lawyer Wambua Kilonzo, stated that the contempt of court order application should be expunged to allow the whole case to continue.
He argued that it would be time wasting to spend much time on the application since the Government had fully complied with the orders after switching on Citizen TV and Inooro TV frequencies days after KTN News and NTV's frequencies were restored.
The Government shut down the four TV stations after they covered the controversial “swearing- in” of National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga on January 30.
[caption caption="CSs Mucheru and Matiang'i"]
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