{"id":120432,"date":"2025-08-27T13:06:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/27\/senate-declines-mutais-preliminary-objection-to-consider-merits-in-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T13:06:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:06:32","slug":"senate-declines-mutais-preliminary-objection-to-consider-merits-in-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/senate-declines-mutais-preliminary-objection-to-consider-merits-in-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate declines Mutai\u2019s preliminary objection, to consider merits in trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 27<\/strong> \u2013 Senate Speaker Amason Kingi has dismissed a preliminary objection by Governor Eric Mutai\u2019s legal team challenging the validity of the Kericho County Assembly impeachment vote, ruling that the issue will be determined during the plenary hearing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the objection, Governor Mutai\u2019s lawyer Katwa Kigen argued that the two-thirds threshold required for impeachment was not met. <\/p>\n

He contended that only twenty-nine out of forty-seven Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) voted in support of the motion\u2014falling short of the constitutionally required thirty-two.<\/p>\n

Kigen further alleged irregularities in the electronic voting system, citing multiple voting, unauthorized access, and lack of transparency on abstentions.<\/p>\n

In his ruling, Speaker Kingi emphasized that a preliminary objection must raise a pure point of law and not rely on contested facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI therefore rule that since this is a matter of fact requiring the adducing of evidence, it will be determined by hearing both parties and entertaining the evidence they present,\u201d Kingi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis preliminary objection is accordingly disallowed for being premature at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Threshold contest <\/h2>\n

The Speaker directed that the Senate will hear evidence from both sides before determining whether the two-thirds threshold was met.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the event that the Senate finds that the two-thirds threshold of 32 members was not attained, the impeachment proceedings shall terminate immediately, and the Senate will not proceed to determine the impeachment charges,\u201d Kingi ruled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf, however, the Senate finds that the threshold was met, it will then proceed to establish whether the impeachment charges have been substantiated through a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

The County Assembly, through its counsel, dismissed the governor\u2019s claims as \u201csensational allegations,\u201d insisting that the impeachment was conducted in strict compliance with the law.<\/p>\n

The Assembly cited a previous High Court ruling on Nairobi\u2019s gubernatorial impeachment, which established that contested vote tallies could only be resolved through evidence and expert testimony.<\/p>\n

The impeachment now proceeds to plenary, where both sides will present witnesses and evidence before senators vote on the charges.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 27 \u2013 Senate Speaker Amason Kingi has dismissed a preliminary objection by Governor Eric Mutai\u2019s legal team challenging the validity of the Kericho County Assembly impeachment vote, ruling that the issue will be determined during the plenary hearing. In the objection, Governor Mutai\u2019s lawyer Katwa Kigen argued that the two-thirds threshold required […]<\/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-120432","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\/120432","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=120432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}