High Court deals blow to civil servants eyeing Speaker’s post
Public and state officers are not qualified to contest the position of Speaker at county and national assemblies, the High Court has ruled.
Public and state officers are not qualified to contest the position of Speaker at county and national assemblies, the High Court has ruled.
Justice Hellen Ong’udi held that civil servants intending to vie for the position of Speaker ought to have resigned on or before February 9 — being six months to the General Election — just like their colleagues who resigned to contest political seats.
“It must be borne in mind that the qualifications for a Speaker of the county assembly are similar to those of a member of the county assembly. Similarly, those of the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Senate are similar to those of the MPs and the Senate respectively. One of the disqualifications is if any one of them is a state officer or public officer. This applies to all the houses,” she said.
She stated that Section 43(5) of the Elections Act, which provides that a public officer intending to contest an election shall resign from public office at least six months before the date of the election, applies equally to a public officer seeking to be elected as speaker of the county assembly or any House of Parliament.
The judge made the finding while dismissing a petition filed by Mr Phillip Langat, who wanted court to declare that the resignation requirement is not mandatory to persons contesting the position of a county assembly speaker. The petitioner had argued that the law demanding the resignation was illegal, discriminatory, unfair, unreasonable and disproportionate.
Arguing that public officers intending to vie for county Speaker’s seat are not bound by the said law, Mr Langat said the Speaker of the county assembly is an ex-officio member and as such his/her membership is neither through an election nor through nomination. “Election of the Speaker is presided over by the clerk of the respective county assembly and not the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). The election date for the Speaker is neither predetermined nor known and the seat becomes due only after a general election. Hence any public officer intending to contend for that seat needs not resign as stipulated in the Act,” said Mr Langat.
Unlike other elective seats, he argued that the Speaker only becomes a member of the assembly after he is picked by elected and nominated members of the county assembly. Hence, the process of choosing the Speaker is not an election contemplated under Article 38(2), as read with Article 81 (d), of the Constitution and by extension Section 43(5) of the Elections Act, 2011.
