The Court of Appeal has overturned the High Court’s directives in the verdict rendered by Justice Mugambi on March 17, 2024, which ordered Athletics Kenya’s officials and Executive Committee to vacate office following the successful appeal by Athletics Kenya.
In their ruling on Friday, Justices Pauline Nyamweya, Aggrey Mchelule, and George Odunga pointed out that the petitioners had not requested the orders prohibiting the executive committee members from seeking public office in the High Court, and as a result, the officials and members of the executive committee had not been given an opportunity to respond to them.
“In the premises, we allow the appeal and set aside the orders directing the officials and executive committee of the appellant to forthwith vacate office and that they are ineligible to contest for any position in the organisation,” the judges stated in their judgement.
The Court of Appeal further held that while it was true that in directing the officials to vacate the office, the judge found that they had been in the office for the cumulative period of 8 years, on 10th May 2017, the parties recorded a consent staying the conduct of the elections that had commenced on 27th April 2017 until the hearing of the petition.
During the period of review of the appellant’s constitution, the law preserved the appellant’s existing status for the purposes of transition.
In the view of the judges, that could not have been the intention of the drafters of the Sports Act.
“It cannot therefore be said that during the said period, a period when the said officials had to be in the office, courtesy of a legal provision, in order to effect the transition, the said officials could be said to have been in the office for the purposes of computing their tenure in the office. To do so would presume that the said officials and executive committee members ought to have vacated their offices, with the result that there would have been no one in the office to carry out the transition,” the judges noted.
The judges further added:
“In any case, we agree that sections 46 and 49 of the Act which the learnt Judge relied upon to remove the appellant’s officials from office did not provide for their removal. Accordingly, the learnt judge erred in relying on irrelevant legal provisions in granting the orders removing the appellant’s officials and executive committee members from the office.”
The case was filed by retired athlete Moses Tanui, alongside other individuals who had sought to have the officials declared illegally in office.
With the said judgement, this dispute that has been in court for close to 9 years has now been concluded.
It means that current Athletics Kenya officials will remain in office until a fresh election is conducted.
The ruling now paves the way for the AK executive committee to draft a clear road map for elections.
By Dismas Otuke
