A lawyer has moved to court seeking to have a government directive requiring all civil servants to get vaccinated against the Covid-19 disease quashed.
Clement Koigi, a Nakuru-based lawyer, is challenging the directive by Head of Public Service, Joseph Kinyua, requiring all government employees to receive the first dose of the Covid-19 jab by Monday, August 23.
Koigi wants the court to declare the directive as unconstitutional as it violates basic principles enshrined in the constitution.
The lawyers states that the directive is discriminatory as it infringes on civil servants' right to privacy and goes against fair labour practices in the country.
In his petition filed at the Nakuru Law Court on Thursday, August 19, Koigi states that the directive was made in bad faith and in breach of the law.
“The decision limits the constitutional rights of public officers to life, equality and freedom from discrimination, human dignity, freedom and security of the person, privacy, freedom of conscience, religion, belief and opinion and fair labour practices,” Koigi argues in his petition.
The directive, which was issued on Monday, August 9 by Kinyua, warned civil servants of disciplinary action should they fail to receive the vaccine by the set date.
Koigi, further argued that Kenyans have a right to question the legitimacy of the vaccines and its side effects among other things. With this, he argues, the decision to take the jab should be a personal one and not a coercion.
He also stated that the government should have carried out public participation among Kenyans before issuing the directive.
In addition to his arguments, Koigi notes that the government failed to demonstrate how employees not vaccinated would affect their vaccinated colleagues at workplaces. He added that the government should have based their directive on research.
“The directive is not based on any law and the limitation is unreasonable and unjustifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom,” he argued.
