Court orders Athletics Kenya officials to vacate positions for fresh elections

The High court has ordered Athletics Kenya (AK) officials and executive committee members who have been in the offices for the last eight years to vacate their offices immediately to allow fresh elections.

The officials ordered by Justice Lawrence Mugambi to leave include the AK chairman Lt. Gen. (retired) Jackson Tuwei and his vice Paul Mutwii among others.

They shall not be eligible to contest for any position in the organization in any future elections.

In the judgment delivered on March 7, 2024, AK was directed to carry out further review of its constitution adopted and ratified on April 27, 2016 within the next 90 days.

This is to consider public views gathered during its last review for purposes of enhancing inclusivity, democratic representation of various players in the athletics discipline into AK’s top decision making organ and to guarantee enhanced transparency in areas of concern raised by the stakeholders.

Moses Tanui and nine other athletes had sued the AK in 2016.

The petitioners argued that the same was necessary to guarantee enhanced transparency in areas of concern raised by the public and stakeholders including athletes.

Tanui and his group successfully petitioned the high court to declare that section 47 (1) of the Sports Act confers the AK monopolistic status as the only registered National Sports Organization in the athletics discipline therefore the organization has a duty to the public to conduct its affairs having due regard to public interest and is thus enjoined by Article 10 (2) of the Constitution.

This therefore means AK must hold consultations with the public and prove due consideration to concerns raised by the public while formulating or reviewing its policy documents.

"If such an organization is allowed to glaringly ignore the concerns of the public, the benefit to the public envisaged by the transformative provisions of the Sports Act will never be realized as the organization will forever remain beholden to serve the interests of a few," Mr Tanui argued in suit papers.

The group also secured orders directing AK to carry out further review of its constitution adopted and or ratified on April, 27, 2016 within the next 90 days.

This will enable inclusion of public views for purposes of enhancing inclusivity, democratic representation of various players in the athletics discipline into AK's top decision-making organ and to guarantee enhanced transparency in areas of concern raised by the stakeholders.

Justice Mugambi said despite AK demonstrating that it undertook public participation, the organization does even attempt to credit a singular amendment as the product of the public participation process.

"It only affected the specific conditions mandatorily required by the Sports Act as a basic minimum.The public participation process raised fundamental concerns of inclusivity, democratic representations of key sections in the athletic discipline and enhancing transparency in selection of athletes to mention but a few. These were some of the concerns made by the public and stakeholders," the judge said.

Among the issues raised to the AK committee included eligibility and voting rights of athletes and the need to incorporate athletes into the management of AK the need for retired athletes to be considered for membership.

Others include the need to give athletes' representatives a competitive position, proposals for the affiliates to be based at county level and not in regions so as to be consistent with devolution arrangement, the need to treat coaches as stakeholders and to give them voting rights during annual general meetings and so forth.

In the petition, the petitioner argued that there was opaqueness in the manner in which the AK carried out the process of the review of the constitution that it submitted for registration under the Sports Act.