Court suspends Ruto's nomination of climate council members

The High Court in Milimani Nairobi has suspended President William Ruto's decision to nominate Emily Mwende Waita, John Kioli, Umar Omar and George Odera Outa as members of the National Climate Change Council (NCCC). The interim order issued by Justice Mugure Thande bars the nominees from being appointed, gazetted or holding offices as members of NCCC pending the hearing of a petition challenging their recruitment process. The petition has been filed by Mt Kenya Network Forum and indigenous People National Steering Committee on climate change (IPNSCCC). The petitioners claim that the said nominations by President Ruto failed to meet to the required legal threshold on transparency, competitiveness, merits and public participation. Read: They also contend that the civil society organisations working on climate change in Kenya were excluded in the selection of the members of the council. "It is not clear who amongst the nominees is the representative of the largest civil society organisation working on climate change as it is envisaged in the Council Act or what process was used to select the representative for the civil society as required by the law and the Constitution and whether there was any form of public participation in the selection of the said individuals in accordance with the Public Participation Act, " reads the court papers.  The petitioners also claim the positions were not advertised as required by law. They have sued the Attorney General Justin Muturi and National Climate Change Council.  The case will be mentioned on April 17 for directions.