Placed before the Court in Chambers today and ex parte is the Petitioner/Applicant's Notice of Motion Application dated 07/08/2025. The Application seeks the grant of leave for the Petitioner/Applicant to file and serve Supplementary Written Submissions, a Supplementary List and Bundle of Authorities and a Supplementary Case Digest limited to the case of Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba -v- Attorney General [2017] KEHC 9163 (KLR) which the Applicant avers only came to his Counsel's knowledge after all parties had filed and exchanged written submissions and the matter reserved for judgment.
The Application is supported by the Affidavit of Petitioner dated 07/08/2025.
To my mind, the matter is a straight-forward one that is fit and ripe for summary determination in favour of the Applicant. The Court notes that there is sufficient time to allow the Applicant to file and serve the additional materials, and for the parties on the opposite side of the matter to consider the same and file and serve their responses, and for the Court to then once more retire to write judgment in this matter after having considered the new materials in light of the already filed documents.
The Respondents will suffer no prejudice, as they will have sufficient time to consider the supplementary filings by the Petitioner/Applicant and to thereafter place before the Court their own counter filings, if need be.
At the heart of our judicial system under the Constitution of Kenya 2010 is the imperative at doing substantive justice that does not pay undue regard to procedural technicalities. While timelines and filing milestones are not strictly speaking procedural technicalities, nevertheless to insist on timelines and filing milestones in circumstances when there can be room for the Court to receive additional filings from all parties and still have ample time to write a judgment would not be in resonance with the expectations of the Constitution as espoused at Article 159(2).
The Court also summarily determines this Application in favour of the Applicant ex parte as the Application is straightforward and so as to maintain the judgment date already fixed in this matter, albeit with reduction of the Court's time to write the judgment so that the parties can file and exchange the necessary supplementary materials. If this matter were to be argued adversarily, the result would be the arresting of the judgment and the loss of the already fixed judgment date, with the outcome certainly being the allowing of the Application in any case. There is also an extremely high likelihood that the Respondents would not oppose, and would only wish to be allowed time to put in their counter-submissions and other materials.
In any case, the Court could, and perhaps already has, considered and applied the stated case within its thinking, as a Court is not limited to only the authorities cited and supplied by the Parties.
It follows then that the Petitioner/Applicant's Notice of Motion dated 07/08/2025 must be summarily allowed, which I hereby do, with no costs and on the following other terms:
a) The Petitioner/Applicant shall file and serve the Petitioner's Supplementary Written Submissions, Supplementary List and Bundle of Authorities, and a Supplementary Case Digest if need be and limited to the case of Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba -v- Attorney General [2017] KEHC 9163 (KLR) by close of business 14/08/2025; and also serve this Ruling on the other parties by close of business 14/08/2025;
b) Leave to reply by way of Supplementary written submissions, list and bundle of authorities, and case digests is granted to the Respondents and the Interested Party, and the same shall be filed and served by close of business 22/08/2025;
c) At the end of day 22/08/2025 the matter shall once again be reserved for judgment and judgment shall be delivered on the previously fixed 23/10/2025 at 10:30AM virtually.
Dated, Signed, and Delivered Electronically and in Chambers on this Thirteenth Day of August in the Year 2025.
The Application is supported by the Affidavit of Petitioner dated 07/08/2025.
To my mind, the matter is a straight-forward one that is fit and ripe for summary determination in favour of the Applicant. The Court notes that there is sufficient time to allow the Applicant to file and serve the additional materials, and for the parties on the opposite side of the matter to consider the same and file and serve their responses, and for the Court to then once more retire to write judgment in this matter after having considered the new materials in light of the already filed documents.
The Respondents will suffer no prejudice, as they will have sufficient time to consider the supplementary filings by the Petitioner/Applicant and to thereafter place before the Court their own counter filings, if need be.
At the heart of our judicial system under the Constitution of Kenya 2010 is the imperative at doing substantive justice that does not pay undue regard to procedural technicalities. While timelines and filing milestones are not strictly speaking procedural technicalities, nevertheless to insist on timelines and filing milestones in circumstances when there can be room for the Court to receive additional filings from all parties and still have ample time to write a judgment would not be in resonance with the expectations of the Constitution as espoused at Article 159(2).
The Court also summarily determines this Application in favour of the Applicant ex parte as the Application is straightforward and so as to maintain the judgment date already fixed in this matter, albeit with reduction of the Court's time to write the judgment so that the parties can file and exchange the necessary supplementary materials. If this matter were to be argued adversarily, the result would be the arresting of the judgment and the loss of the already fixed judgment date, with the outcome certainly being the allowing of the Application in any case. There is also an extremely high likelihood that the Respondents would not oppose, and would only wish to be allowed time to put in their counter-submissions and other materials.
In any case, the Court could, and perhaps already has, considered and applied the stated case within its thinking, as a Court is not limited to only the authorities cited and supplied by the Parties.
It follows then that the Petitioner/Applicant's Notice of Motion dated 07/08/2025 must be summarily allowed, which I hereby do, with no costs and on the following other terms:
a) The Petitioner/Applicant shall file and serve the Petitioner's Supplementary Written Submissions, Supplementary List and Bundle of Authorities, and a Supplementary Case Digest if need be and limited to the case of Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba -v- Attorney General [2017] KEHC 9163 (KLR) by close of business 14/08/2025; and also serve this Ruling on the other parties by close of business 14/08/2025;
b) Leave to reply by way of Supplementary written submissions, list and bundle of authorities, and case digests is granted to the Respondents and the Interested Party, and the same shall be filed and served by close of business 22/08/2025;
c) At the end of day 22/08/2025 the matter shall once again be reserved for judgment and judgment shall be delivered on the previously fixed 23/10/2025 at 10:30AM virtually.
Dated, Signed, and Delivered Electronically and in Chambers on this Thirteenth Day of August in the Year 2025.