The Supreme Court Judges has adjourned the hearing of the contentious Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) appeal after a three day consecutive sitting.
Chief Justice Martha Koome said the judges will now retreat to draw final verdict on the matter. Thereafter, a date to deliver the judgement will be set.
The appellants; Attorney General, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, Independent Electoral Board and Commission (IEBC) and the BBI Secretariat were challenging the decision by the lower court that declared the process unconstitutional as the hearing entered its final day.
Lawyer Evans Ogada, a respondent in the case representing a civil society group asked the seven judge bench to rule with finality that the BBI process was illegal in its entirety.
“In your quest to find judicial truth, we pray that this court remains alive to history and mottled by corruption, nepotism. The court is besotted to remember our constitutional history and the price that was paid by martyrs who along the way shed blood,” he argued.
Ogada highlighted that the appeal case has no merit citing that it was a means by a section of politicians to capture power.
“We are happy because from the gloom and misery that we are being subjected to by politicians the courts have displayed sparks of life. Please do it again,” he stated.
However, Kenyatta yesterday was faulted for acting beyond his mandate by initiating a constitutional amendment process through the BBI process.
In his submissions, lawyer Isaac Aluochier who is the ninetieth respondent in the BBI appeal suit noted that the process of amending the Constitution is a preserve of the people and is clearly stipulated in the Constitution.
“We have no higher law than this Constitution. Therefore, we have to abide by it. If our Constitution is supreme then it is supreme and no law can purport to construe it and its provisions,” he said.
Koome said the judges will now retreat to make a final verdict on the contentious BBI, after which a date to deliver the judgement will be set.