BY SAM ALFAN.
High court has overturned decision by trial court compelling investigative agencies and prosecution to supply evidence per count on all corruption matters.
High court Anti-Corruption judge John Onyiego overturned ruling by Anti-Corruption Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti compelling investigators and DPP to ensure that disclosure in each prosecution file must be done count by count.
“The application herein succeeds and the orders regarding disclosure of evidence count per count is hereby set aside”, ruled Onyiego.
The judge in his ruling said that as it is now, the DPP cannot be questioned or challenged on the merits or sufficiency of evidence at the pretrial stage until full hearing is conducted and cross examination duly carried out and then determined by the court on whether there is case to answer or not.
He added that being aware Anti-Corruption matters are unique in nature, there is need for legislation to provide for special legislation process of prosecution including preliminary committal proceedings at the pretrial conference stage to determine on the cases worthy proceedings to full trial.
Ogoti had ordered prosecution to make disclosure in every file prosecution file and investigative agencies and the DPP to ensure that disclosure in each prosecution file must be done count by count.
He also ordered that all disclosure should be captured in an inventory to be signed by both parties prosecution and defence and filed in court, each item to be presented in the inventory singularly and the documents disclosed in such manner to have indexes paginated.
Aggrieved by the ruling, DPP challenged the decision in the high court .
He urged the court to reverse the Magistrate ruling relating to specific disclosure per account in the charge sheets.
However, prosecution application seeking for a bench to hear the matter was dismissed on the ground that it did not raise substantial question of law that could not be addressed by a single judge.
