Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Eric Theuri has demanded that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji give credible reasons for discontinuing graft cases.
In a press briefing on Thursday, October 13, Theuri asked the judiciary to insist on the DPP providing valid reasons before dropping the cases in court.
The LSK president said that the move will assert the independence of the judiciary and prevent the abuse of judicial time and resources.
"The DPP owes the country an explanation as to the reason informing the discontinuation of cases. If the cases are being withdrawn for lack of evidence, the DPP must take responsibility and explain how the decision to charge was arrived at in the first instance.
"We call on the judiciary and especially the magistrate handling the cases to insist on the DPP providing credible reasons before allowing the discontinuation of the charges. This is to assert the independence of the judiciary and prevents the courts from being an arena for settling scores and abuse of judicial time and resources," Theuri stated.
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He added that some of the suspects in the graft cases were arrested in dramatic situations, with statements about their arrests issued.
Theuri, however, said that the dropping of their charges was done silently without any statement on the same from the DPP.
"We all recall that some of the suspects were arrested in somewhat dramatic situations with the media press releases as to the reason for their arrest and arraignment in court. However, the discontinuation of the charges have been done silently without any press release from the DPP," he stated.
The DPP dropped multiple graft cases, including those of Public Service and Gender CS nominee Aisha Jumwa and former Kenya Power MD Ben Chumo.
