Judge calls out EACC for holding onto seized documents
A High Court Judge has delivered a ruling that's likely to unsettle the EACC after declaring that the agency cannot hold onto documents seized during investigations for an unreasonable period of time
A High Court Judge has delivered a ruling that’s likely to unsettle the EACC after declaring that the agency cannot hold onto documents seized during investigations for an unreasonable period of time.
Justice Nixon Sifuna said the law exists to protect people, not to grind them underfoot in the name of endless investigations.
“It is unreasonable, absurd, pretentious, and legally unsupportable for an investigative agency such as the EACC to raid a person’s premises, cart away documents supposedly for investigations, and thereafter stay with the documents for six years,” Justice Sifuna said.
He emphasised that investigations cannot continue for eternity but ought to be concluded within a reasonable time and the findings made known.
He made the remarks in a case in which a former employee at KRA sought to have EACC return to him documents they seized on April 19, 2018.
During investigations, the EACC had alleged that between 2010 and 2015 Joseph Chege Gikonyo and Lucy Kangai Stephen both directors at Giche Limited accumulated unexplained assets amounting to Sh597 million.
The commission filed for forfeiture of the assets.
Documents belonging to Chege were also seized by the EACC sleuths during the period of probe.
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Chege later made an application to have the documents returned to him an application that was opposed by the EACC on grounds that it was yet to complete it’s probe.
But Judge Sifuna in allowing Chege’s application said EACC should not in their investigations and raids cart away documents and retain them forever.
“I hope that the EACC being a public entity running in the will of over 50 million Kenyans and public funds should be transparent and accountable in its actions and should not act with such impunity,” he said.
In closing, the Judge ordered the commission to within 30 days from today unconditionally return the said documents to Chege.
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