‘Brave New Bar’ team stands a good chance to transform LSK

With the Law Society of Kenya elections now behind everyone’s back, the membership having left no doubt that they need transformative leadership by overwhelmingly electing Nelson Havi, a new face in the LSK Council as president, it’s time for action and no more talk.

Havi’s entry on the ‘Brave New Bar’ platform sought to regain the organisation’s lost glory, monitor legislation and lead from the front in public interest litigation and the promotion of the rule of law.

The other mandates of the lawyers’ body, as set out in Clause 4 of the LSK Act, however more compellingly dwell on issues to do with maintenance of quality standards of training, which none of his predecessors and aspirants ever want to talk about as they savour populism.

It is common knowledge that Kenya could be having the weakest legal regulatory framework for the training of advocates in the region as the floodgates for entry to the profession have been more or less left wide open.

The task force set up to review the framework seems not to have achieved much at a time when education in Kenya has, over time, been commercialised with every other university setting up a law campus.

Surprisingly, the discussion has been more on how everybody who joins the School of Law should pass examinations rather than the stringent measures that should be put in place so that only deserving students gain entry into the profession. The result of that has been the admission of thousands of students every other year to the Bar.

Ugandan students have not been left behind in taking advantage of the weak regulation. They evade the stringent admission requirements in their country by crossing the border to gain admission to the Kenyan Bar. Very unusually, Kenya has opened its doors for the practice of law to all the other East African countries while none of them allow Kenyan advocates to practise in their jurisdictions.

Then there is the lawyers’ welfare, which is always given little attention and, whenever that is done, it’s always about young advocates, more selfishly because of their numbers when it comes to voting during elections. Nobody remembers or talks about senior advocates.

It’s a step in the right direction that the new LSK president said during the recent elections that he was open to engaging senior advocates.

The lean LSK secretariat of yesteryear is overstretched as the number of advocates has since increased multiple times. The disciplinary tribunal is also overwhelmed; there is only one, which sits in Nairobi. Regional tribunals should be set up.

The first IN tray item for the new office should be the standoff between the Judiciary and Executive, which has led to the delay in the appointment of 41 judges in various courts.

LSK should mediate, applying every arsenal, including seeking a legal avenue that will see these judges take up their positions. The Court of Appeal and the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi are crippled for shortage of judges.

Havi should leverage on the overwhelming goodwill he received across the board to fix and transform LSK beyond the fiery, radical rhetoric from its previous leaders without losing focus on members’ welfare, creation of a level playing field in the practice environment in all courts and pushing for a stringent regulatory framework in the training of advocates.

The core needs during the one-party rule may never be the same as today, with more advocates and expanded democratic space and liberalised human rights protection.

The LSK president, having been gracious in his victory, cuts the image of a leader out to unite the membership. This could end the acrimonious divisions that have bedevilled the organisation in the recent past. There is equally goodwill from all the advocates for the ‘Brave New Bar’ to engrave its footprint on the history of LSK. Seize the moment!