Tag Archives: kalpana rawal

Several African public figures (and associates) mentioned in the Panama Papers

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The Guardian has an excellent summary of what you need to know about the Panama Papers, the data leak of the century from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.The firms specializes, among other things, in incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions that guarantee secrecy of ownership.

Here is a map of the companies and clients mentioned in the leaked documents (source). Apparently, the entire haul (2.6 terabytes of data) has information on 214,000 shell companies spanning the period between 1970 to 2016.

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The leaked documents show links to 72 current or former heads of state and government. So far the highest-ranking public official most likely to resign as a result  of the leak is the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson (see story here and here)

For a list of African public officials mentioned in the leaked documents see here. And I am sure we are going to hear a lot about all these rich people in developing countries.Screen Shot 2016-04-03 at 9.18.42 PM

Closer to home, the Daily Nation reports that Kenya’s Deputy Chief Justice, Kalpana Rawal, “has been linked to a string of shell companies registered in a notorious Caribbean tax haven popular with tax dodgers, dictators and drug dealers.” Justice Rawal has been dodging retirement for a while. May be after the latest revelations might find a reason to call it quits.

The ICIJ website has neat figures summarizing some of the findings from the massive data haul. Also, here is a Bloomberg story on the tax haven that is the United States. 

Supreme Court Judgment on the Presidential Election Petition 2013

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The Kenyan Supreme Court released the full judgment (PDF) following the justices’ unanimous dismissal of Raila Odinga’s petition challenging the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Below are some sections of the ruling.

This Judgment, therefore, may be viewed as a baseline for the Supreme Court’s perception of matters political, as these interplay with the progressive terms of the new Constitution. It is clear that this Judgment, just as it is important to all Kenyans in political terms, is no less important to the Court itself, in terms of the evolution of jurisprudence in the domain of public affairs. It is particularly so, in the light of Section 3(c) of the Supreme Court Act, which vests in this Court the obligation to “develop rich jurisprudence that respects Kenya’s history and traditions and facilitates its social, economic and political growth.”

…the respondents are invited to bear the evidential burden. The threshold of proof should, in principle, be above the balance of probability, though not as high as beyond-reasonable-doubt…

…the failure mainly arose from the misunderstandings and squabbles among IEBC members during the procurement process – squabbles which occasioned the failure to assess the integrity of the technologies in good time. It is, indeed, likely that the acquisition process was marked by competing interests involving impropriety, or even criminality: and we recommend that this matter be entrusted to the relevant State agency, for further investigation and possible prosecution of suspects.

In summary, the evidence, in our opinion, does not disclose any profound irregularity in the management of the electoral process, nor does it gravely impeach the mode of participation in the electoral process by any of the candidates who offered himself or herself before the voting public. It is not evident, on the facts of this case, that the candidate declared as the President-elect had not obtained the basic vote-threshold justifying his being declared as such.

As I have said before on this blog, the justices had to make both legal and political considerations with regard to this case. I am not a lawyer and cannot comment on the legal aspects of the case/ruling. With regard to the political considerations, I think the court showed its conservative hand – opting for a strategy of letting Kenya’s new institutions grow on their own without strict supervision from the courts; notice the many references to public opinion and perception in the ruling. That is how the court interprets its mandate to “develop rich jurisprudence that respects Kenya’s history and traditions and facilitates its social, economic and political growth,” I think.

Kenya awaits Supreme Court verdict

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Kenya’s prime minister Raila Odinga last Saturday filed a petition challenging the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as president-elect (with 50.07% to 43.28%) after the presidential elections earlier this month.

In the petition Mr. Odinga cites a host of factors that, in his view, significantly compromised the integrity of the election – including an unstable voter register; inconsistencies and errors in final vote counts; and failures in the electronic tallying system.

In a rally in Mombasa this week Odinga claimed to have won the election with 5.7m votes to Kenyatta’s 4.5m.

With the filing of the petition, the country’s attention has shifted to the Supreme Court. The court is constitutionally mandated to issue its ruling within a fortnight from last Saturday (latest March 30).

Should the court find in favor of Odinga’s petition Kenyans will have a re-run election in late May, with a possible runoff a month after that. The law says that in case of irregularities the court has to nullify the entire (presidential) election. It is unclear if the judges can rule on limiting the re-run to a runoff between Kenyatta and Odinga. If the judges dismiss the case Kenyatta will be sworn in on April 9th.

It is obvious that the ruling will be as political as it will be legal. Six judges (see here) will hear the case as the nominated deputy Chief Justice is yet to be confirmed by the National Assembly. Under normal circumstances five judges would have heard the case to avoid a tie but since the selection of the five would have tilted the case one way or the other all six will be present.

Should there be a tie the status quo will hold and Kenyatta will be sworn in early next month.

So how might the judges vote?

Based on my conversations with people in the know, it appears that the swing justices will be Chief Justice Mutunga and Justice Mohamed Ibrahim. The two are largely expexted to adhere the most to the legal merits and implications of the petition. The eventual ruling will therefore partly depend on the ability of the two to persuade their colleagues. As President of the court, CJ Mutunga will be under pressure to be on the winning side of the ruling.

A tie would be the worst of possible outcomes as it would suggest that the court, by far the most trusted Kenyan institution, is just as divided as the rest of the country.

The court’s only other ruling before this was on affirmative action to increase the proportion of women in the Kenyan parliament to a third. They voted against (arguing for a gradualist achievement of the same), with CJ Mutunga being the sole dissenter.

On the left-right spectrum CJ Mutunga is the most progressive member of the court (and the highest rated public official, despite Kenya’s socially conservative bend). Justices Wanjala, Ibrahim and Ndungu are centrists, while Ojwang and Tunoi are conservative.