There was confusion at Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT) hearing on Tuesday, March 7, after two lawyers turned up holding briefs for the same clients.
Jackson Awele and John Njomo openly clashed on who was supposed to defend suspended Jubilee officials Jeremiah Kioni, David Murathe and Kagwe Gichohi.
Awele told the tribunal that he was given the job of defending the trio by the Jubilee Party concerning the trio's ouster.
On the other hand, Njomo revealed that he had been instructed to take over the legal representation of the embattled officials.
Njomo pleaded with the court to confirm his appointment as the legal representative arguing that a notice of change of advocates had already been filed.
“We filed the notice of the change on March 6, 2023. No documents have been presented to demonstrate that Jubilee Party still intends to retain Awele.
“This means we have the right to represent Jubilee and our expectation is that we will discharge that mandate from the point we served our counterpart with the notice,” he argued.
While not denying that such notice had been filed, Awele petitioned the tribunal to grant them time to solve the matter amicably.
The postponement was met by sharp opposition from newly elected party officials Kanini Kega, Adan Keynan, Sabina Chege and Joshua Kutuny.
Through their lawyers, they read mischief in the whole process claiming it was an underhand tactic to make sure that the suspended officials got back into power.
“There are interim orders in place and there is an NDC meeting planned and scheduled for March 23.
"This confusion is aimed at delaying and ensuring this matter is overtaken by events to allow the meeting to be held,” they protested through their lawyer Edward Muriu.
On February 16, PPDT - through an interim order - temporarily set aside the resolution of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to suspend Jeremiah Kioni and David Murathe as Secretary-General and National Vice-Chairman respectively.
On February 10, Jubilee’s NEC replaced Kioni with the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Member of Parliament Kanini Kega and Murathe’s position was assumed by Eldas Constituency Member of Parliament Adan Keynan.
With the interim orders saving Murathe and Kioni from ouster, Muriu argued that the planned NDC meeting was meant to revert the resolutions that were made by NEC on February 10.
