NAIROBI, Kenya May 30 \u2013 Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has shifted his legal strategy to seek compensation for what he terms an \u201cunlawful impeachment,\u201d abandoning his earlier bid for reinstatement to office.<\/p>\n
Appearing before a three-judge bench at the Milimani High Court on Thursday, May 29, Gachagua\u2019s lawyer, Paul Muite, said his client would now focus on constitutional redress rather than returning to his former position. Muite told the court that Gachagua intends to challenge the legality of his removal from office and seek damages for the term he says was unjustly cut short.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe petitioner wishes to vigorously challenge the legality and constitutionality of his impeachment and will be seeking to persuade this Honourable Court to grant him a monument he would have earned had he served for the entire five years for which he had been elected by the Kenyan people,\u201d Muite said.<\/p>\n
He further confirmed that all prayers seeking reinstatement would be dropped, calling them irrelevant under the new legal approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the prayers of declaration, E565 in its current form; those are prayers, a declaration that the petitioner wishes to be abandoned,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
The court was informed that the respondents did not object to the proposed amendments. In its ruling, the bench comprising Justices Eric Ogolla, Anthony Mrima, and Freda Mugambi granted Gachagua and other petitioners leave to amend their filings within seven days. Respondents were also given seven days to amend their responses, if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeave is hereby granted to the petitioners to further amend their respective petitions, if need be, within seven days from today. Leave is also granted to the respondents to further amend, as the case may be, their respective responses in the petition also within seven days,\u201d the court ruled.<\/p>\n
The judges, noting the public interest in the case, also directed that all pending applications\u2014including any motions for withdrawal or further leave\u2014be consolidated and heard together.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking into account the public interest issues in this matter\u2026 all pending applications, if any, shall be heard together in the petitions,\u201d the court directed.<\/p>\n
The matter is scheduled for mention on June 19, 2025, for compliance and to issue further directions ahead of the hearing.<\/p>\n
The three-judge bench was empaneled by Chief Justice Martha Koome to handle the consolidated constitutional petitions challenging Gachagua\u2019s impeachment. The move followed a May 9 ruling by the Court of Appeal, which quashed an earlier attempt by Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu to constitute a similar bench.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAIROBI, Kenya May 30 \u2013 Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has shifted his legal strategy to seek compensation for what he terms an \u201cunlawful impeachment,\u201d abandoning his earlier bid for reinstatement to office. Appearing before a three-judge bench at the Milimani High Court on Thursday, May 29, Gachagua\u2019s lawyer, Paul Muite, said his client would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}