Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has withdrawn impeachment petition E522 of 2024.
In a surprising turn of events, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has formally withdrawn two constitutional petitions challenging his impeachment, citing the fact that they have been overtaken by events.
Through a notice filed at the High Court and addressed to the Deputy Registrar, Gachagua, represented by Senior Counsel Paul Muite and advocate Victor Swanya seeks to discontinue the petitions filed before his official removal from office by Parliament.
Gachagua has turned into a fierce critic of President William Ruto. The ruling weakens his ambition to run for president, as impeachment bars him from holding public office.
Gachagua was not in court when the 350-page ruling was handed down, but his legal team have vowed to appeal.
His dramatic removal from office followed his fallout with Ruto. An overwhelming majority of lawmakers voted for his impeachment, accusing him of corruption, inciting ethnic divisions and undermining the government.
He challenged the impeachment, arguing that the charges were "baseless", politically motivated and that he had been denied a fair hearing.
Why Gachagua withdrew E522 Swanya told the court that the core issues raised in E522 had already been addressed in a separate but related matter, Petition E565 of 2024, making it unnecessary to continue litigating both cases simultaneously. "What we don't want is to spend a lot of judicial time in arguing a petition whose issues have sort of been determined by E565 of 2024," Swanya said. "So that instead of focusing on this particular petition, which is addressing issues that have been addressed in E565 of 2024, we focus our energies on the appeal which we are pursuing.
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