A three-judge High Court bench on Friday, April 4, 2025, scheduled a contempt of court case against National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula—regarding majority leadership in the House—for a hearing on July 17, 2025.
Justices Jairus Ngaah, John Chigiti, and Lawrence Mugambi set the hearing date on the application by 12 activists who sought to have Wetang’ula jailed for six months for defying court ruling that declared the Azimio la Umoja – One Kenya Coalition as the Majority Party in the National Assembly.
Representing the activists, lawyer Kibe Mungai asked the High Court to jail Wetang’ula for contempt of the court by retaining the Kenya Kwanza Coalition as the Majority Party that he says violated the court judgment issued by a three-judge bench.
Further, they stated that Wetang’ula cannot continue to hold the Speaker’s office while still being the Ford Kenya party leader.
“Wetang’ula cannot continue serving as the Speaker so long as he remains the leader of the Ford Kenya party,” lawyer Kibe told the court.
However, Speaker Wetang’ula and the National Assembly, through lawyer Judith Guserwa, stated that the petitioners did not serve them with the contempt of court proceedings to enable them to respond.
“Prior to the institution of the contempt proceedings, the applicant neither extracted nor served a decree/order of the court, no decree extracted and served by the applicants on the 3rd and 4th respondents to constitute the contempt proceedings,” part of the petition read.
Wetang’ula and the National Assembly have filed an application seeking to have the case dismissed, saying the High Court lacks jurisdiction to hear and determine the contempt of court application against them.
Immunity
The National Assembly Speaker also argues that he cannot be sued as he enjoys Parliamentary immunity from contempt proceedings under Article 117 of the Constitution and section 12 of the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act 2017.
“The 3rd and 4th respondents (Speaker of the National Assembly and Hon.Moses Masika Wetang’ula respectively) enjoy Parliamentary immunity from Contempt of Court proceedings and disobeyance of court orders cannot be issued against him in his individual capacity in respect of any actions carried out by him in the exercise of the official functions of his office,” states the Speaker in his application seeking to strike out the case.
Speaker Wetang’ula states that the court’s jurisdiction to punish for contempt of court is limited to disobedience of its orders, and there are no orders that arise from the judgement of the court capable of enforcing through contempt proceedings.
“There is no order of the court that required the office of Speaker of the National Assembly and Moses Wetang’ula as a person to do or refrain from doing anything capable of being enforced through contempt proceedings,” read part of the petition.
Notably, lawyer Guserwa stated that the application for contempt against Wetang’ula and his office in discharging his official duties is in direct violation of Article 117 of the Constitution and section 12 of the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act 2017 (Cap.6).
Further, he stated that the contempt proceedings are muddled up with other causes of action thereby rendering the contempt application incurably defective and breach their rights to fair hearing.
On February 7, 2025, a three-judge bench consisting of Justice Ngaah Jairus, Chigiti Mugwimi, and Lawrence Mugambi ruled that Kenya Kwanza is not the majority party in the National Assembly declaring Azimio as the majority party.
The bench also declared that the National Assembly speaker Moses Wetang’ula violated the Constitution in making the controversial determination on which party or coalition parties was the majority at the Assembly.
On October 6, 2022, the speaker made a decision of assigning 14 members from various parties to Kenya Kwanza, in efforts to favour Kenya Kwanza coalition thus enabling it to claim majority status.
“It is therefore declared that the Honourable speaker determined as contained in his communication to the chair made on October 6, 2022, that the majority and minority in the National Assembly violated the constitution,” part of the ruling read.
Wetang’ula declared that Kenya Kwanza had 179 members in the House against Azimio la Umoja – One Kenya coalition party’s 157.
However, according to the documents from the Registrar of Political Parties as at April 21, 2021, Azimio coalition party had 26 political parties while Kenya Kwanza had 15.
The court found that the Speaker had no justifiable cornerstone to reassign other members to Kenya Kwanza on October 6, 2022, thus declaring it the majority party in the house.
“The speaker can’t fault the registrar of political parties. She could not provide what she did not have. The speaker ought to have exhibited the agreement which was alleged to have been presented during the debate without the post-election coalition agreements he had no basis to this regard,” part of the ruling read.
On March 21, 2025, the Court of Appeal declined to stay High Court orders regarding the majority coalition in the National Assembly.
The National Assembly of Kenya through Speaker Moses Wetang’ula moved to Court of Appeal seeking stay orders on the three-judge bench ruling declaring Azimio as the Majority coalition in National Assembly.