The Supreme Court has declined to lift its ban on lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi and advocates working at his law firm from appearing before it over his 'distasteful' social media posts 'ridiculing' the court.
The seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice Martha Koome on Friday struck out an application filed by lawyer Julius Miiri asking for review of the ban imposed in January 2024, following what the court termed as years of consistent distasteful remarks against the institution and its judges on various media platforms.
The ruling comes at a time the entire bench is battling a proposed removal from office at the Judicial Service Commission arising from the said ban of Mr Abdullahi, senior Counsel, and the advocates working at his law firm.
In the unanimous ruling, the judges declined Mr Miiri's request and struck out the application based on a legal technicality that it was procedurally flawed.
The judges also ruled that Mr Miiri lacked locus standi to ask for reversal of the decision because he was not one of the advocates affected by the ban.
The judges -Ms Koome, her deputy Philomena Mwilu, together with Justices Mohammed Ibrahim, Smokin Wanjala, Njoki Ndung'u, Isaac Lenaola and William Ouko -questioned why the 15 advocates employed by the law firm have not sought review of their ban since it's imposition in January last year.
Mr Miiri filed the application on January 3, 2025 as a stand alone matter and failed to anchor it to the proceedings of the cases where the ban originated. The judges said this was contrary to the regulations of the Apex Court.
"Mr Miiri has not filed the application in the matters where the decision for recusal was made by the court or in the case where the firm of Ahmednasir Abdullahi Advocates LLP was acting for an appellant. From a concise reading of Section 21A of the Supreme Court Act and Rule 31 of the Supreme Court Rules therefore, Mr Miiri ought to have anchored his review application on the two specific appeals," said the judges.
One of the appeals concerned ownership of land in Eldoret by former President the late Daniel Arap Moi while the other concerned inheritance of properties of a Muslim man by his Islamic wife and a Christian lover.
Although Article 159(d) of the Constitution mandates courts to administer justice without undue regard to procedural technicalities, the Supreme Court said where there exist clear constitutional and statutory guidelines as to the filing of pleadings in court, a deviation of the same cannot warrant the protection afforded under the Constitution.
Regarding whether a non-party to court proceedings has the legal standing to seek a review of the court’s decision, the judges said such a person must have a designed, subsisting, direct and substantive interest in the issues in the litigation.
They observed that Mr Miiri was neither a party to the original proceedings nor did he seek to join those proceedings to allow him to challenge the court's decision to block the lawyers.
"Those lawyers working at Ahmednasir Abdullahi Advocates LLP on their part have not filed an application seeking review of the court’s recusal orders in the two matters, a right available to them if they are minded to invoke it. They have equally not filed pleadings in support of nor in opposition to the present application," said the judges.
"Mr Miiri, while well intentioned, had no locus standi to bring the application. The application as filed is incurably defective and must be struck out," they emphasized.
In his application Mr Miiri said being a practicing advocate, he had locus standi to file the application as well as direct and substantial interest, since the matter concerned role of advocates in the representation of their clients.
He was aggrieved that the order had also limited advocates who may later join the law firm from ever practicing before the Apex Court.
The law firm did not file any formal response to the application but instead sent a letter dated February 7, 2025 highlighting that they had serious issues with the procedural flaws and in the manner in which the application was instituted.
The firm said that they were even more perturbed by the directions of the court requiring its advocates to file responses.
