The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Martha Karambu Koome has issued directives on how the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) appeal will be heard and determined.
CJ Koome directed that the case will be heard for three consecutive days, Tuesday, January 18 to Thursday, January 20, 2022.
The Supreme Court also consolidated three petitions namely Attorney General vs David Ndii, 73 others, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) vs David Ndii, 81 others and lawyer Omokes vs Uhuru Kenyatta and 83 others.
“Petition number 12 of AG vs David Ndii and 73 others will serve as lead files in the proceeding.
“Petitioners in the three respective petitions will be the appellants the rest will be respondents,” Koome ruled.
She further directed the appellants to file and serve their written submissions and list of authorities within 10 days. Respondents were directed to do the same within 10 days after being served.
“All submissions should not exceed 15 pages,” she added but adjourned the court to allow the Judges to deliberate on further requested by lawyers.
The attorneys requested to be allowed to serve and submit files within 15 rather than 10 days.
They also urged the court to allow the maximum number of pages to be increased to 40 rather than 15.
Earlier on the court allowed the inclusion of five international experts into the case as amicus curiae. The five are Richard Albert (US), Yaniv Roznai (Israel), Rosalind Dixon (Australia), David E. Landau (US) and Gautam Bhatia (India).
Pro-BBI teams opposed the application of the five professors arguing that they were not included in the cases at the High Court and Court of Appeal. The lawyers raised concerns about the motive of the legal experts who are believed to be against the BBI initiative.
