LSK boss vows to discipline rowdy lawyers
Lawyers1 who disrupted an annual general meeting of the Law Society of Kenya will face tough disciplinary action.
LSK President Eric Mutua has said that the video footage of the meeting held on Saturday was being reviewed with a view to taking disciplinary action against the culprits.
He added that some members had carried crude weapons with an intention of bringing them into the meeting, but they were intercepted during the screening at the hotel entrance.
“The council will immediately report these members to the police,” he said.
Some of the members have maintained that all decisions made after the council left were legal and valid while Mr Mutua said all motions that were passed after he left the room did not count.
Lawyer Edwin Sifuna in an interview on NTV on Saturday evening said that the events and decisions following the departure of the LSK council were legal and valid.
SHOUTED DOWN
“According to Regulation 38 of the LSK, there has to be concurrence by the membership for a chairman to declare a meeting adjourned. This was not a meeting of the council but of the members. When the council left, the membership remained seated,” he said.
Chaos broke out at the society’s AGM when some members shouted down Mr Mutua for not allowing debate on the controversial International Arbitration and Convention Centre project.
But Mr Mutua maintained that he was within his legal mandate to adjourn the meeting in order to prevent violence.
“It was clear that this was a well-orchestrated move whose sole intention was to derail the meeting and cause violence. There was no respect for law and order. In order to forestall violence the president adjourned the meeting pursuant to Regulation 39 of the Law Society of Kenya (General) Regulations,” he said in a statement.
The subject of the row is a Sh1.2 billion construction project for a building that will host the various offices under the LSK.
The Sifuna-led members, under the banner of Okoa LSK, argue that the cost is grossly inflated and that some of the council members may have pocketed the money purportedly meant for the project. The members voted to abandon the project.