BY SAM ALFAN.
Council of Legal Education have been ordered to register and allow law degree student from Catholic University to sit her bar exams without any conditions.
Justice Chacha Mwita ordered the institution to allow Joan Wambui Kimani to sit for the exams.
The Judge faulted Kenya school of law saying the action contravened Wambui’s rights to fair administrative action and fair hearing guaranteed by the constitution.
In the decision, the Judge said CLE has no mandate to determine eligibility of admission to Advocate Training Programme at the KSL and therefore cannot second guess the latter’s mandate in admitting persons to that Programme.
The court further awarded Wambui Ksh200,000 damages for violation of her rights and fundamental freedoms after she was barred from sitting for the examination.
Wambui filed a petition against the Kenya School of Law, Council of Legal Education and The Attorney General claiming that on December 7,2017, she was admitted to Advocates Training Programme upon submitting her original documents.
She was registered as a student in January 2018 and undertook the training programme.
But later, KSL threatened to deregister her from sitting for the exams.
She moved to court seeking to quash the decision, pending the determination of the case.
She sought for an order to be issued with an exam card and be allowed to sit for her ATP exams that is scheduled for November 15, 2019.
“An order requiring the 1st and 2nd respondents to compensate the petitioner for the violation for her constitutional rights to be treated with inherent dignity, freedom from discrimination, violations of the right to education and unfair treatment in such sum and or amount that shall be assessed by the court,” argued Wambui.
She then registered for the Bar examination to be taken in November 2018 and this was after she submitted all her documents except the original KCSE certificate which had been misplaced.
Wambui added that she was informed by the CLE officers that she needed the original KCSE certificate to register for the bar examination and she applied for a certified copy from the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and gave the CLE a receipt to confirm that the certificate would be sent through their postal address.
“On the October 19,2018, Wambui received an email from the CLE confirming that she had been registered for the bar examination. However, on November 17, 2018, the petitioner received another email from the CLE stating that they had not received a statement of her examination results from the KNEC although the same had in fact been sent to the CLE postal address,” State the court judgment.
Wambui submitted that the CLE informed her that they would contact her to go for her exam card which did not happen. On November 13, 2018, CLE informed her that she would not be sitting for her bar examination due on November 15, 2018.
She contended that the CLE decision to bar her from sitting for the examination was irrational, unreasonable, capricious, discriminatory and unfair and violated her constitutional rights including the right to be heard among other rights and fundamental freedoms She therefore relies on various Article.
