SCHEDULE C

THE SUPREME COURT

DRAFT PRACTICE DIRECTIONS

IN EXERCISE of the powers conferred by Rule 51 (1) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2012 which make provision for issuance of Practice Directions to ensure adherence to the provisions of the Supreme Court Rules, 2012, and in light of previous Supreme Court decisions aimed at ensuring accessibility, efficiency and consistency of operations at the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice makes the following practice directions:

PART I. DOCUMENTS FILED IN THE SUPREME COURT

1. All documents and pleadings to be filed on record will be filed and lodged in the Registry at the first instance upon payment of the requisite fees. No document shall be accepted on record when directly presented in open Court during proceedings.

2. All pleadings accompanied by written submissions, list of authorities and documents lodged in the registry shall be filed both in print and electronic form. The electronic copy shall be presented as a Portable Document Format (PDF) and send via e-mail to [email protected] or presented on Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) in cases where the documents are too bulky and cannot be attached to an e-mail

3. Parties shall lodge and file eight copies of all Pleadings and Documents. Parties shall not file any further documents after close of Pleadings without leave of Court.

1 4. Documents shall be served to the advocates firms on record ONLY. Where a firm on record engages the services of a lead counsel from another firm, it will be the onus of the former to serve the later.

5. The Registrar of the Court shall reject any document that does not comply with the Rules of the Court.

6. All pages shall be numbered on the top right hand corner

7. Every tenth line of every document shall be numbered in the right hand margin.

8. Advocates shall include in all applications, affidavits and Records of Appeal their e-mail and mobile telephone numbers to facilitate faster and easy communication by the Registry

9. Where a Record of Appeal comprises of more than 500 pages the record shall be

Bound in separate volumes each of 500 or less pages. a) The first volume shall contain an index of all the documents in the Record of Appeal indicating where each subsequent volume starts. b). All subsequent volumes shall contain an index of the documents in that volume. c). the covers of all volumes shall be of the same colour with the volume number clearly marked on the front cover. .

PART II. CASE MANAGEMENT

1. All matters once filed will be heard and determined on a First In First Out basis.

2. Unless a matter has been certified urgent by the Court, the President reserves the power to fast-track any matter.

2 3. Matters shall be generally heard as follows:

Tuesdays-Applications,

Wednesdays-References for advisory opinion

Thursdays-Appeals

PART III. SUBMISSIONS

1. All written submissions shall be filed and served 7 clear days before the hearing date.

2. The Court shall limit the time that each party may take for oral submissions.

3. Written submissions shall be concise and to the point. The submissions shall be limited to twenty (20) pages only.

4. The Court may direct that a particular matter be disposed of by way of written submissions only.

5. Hard copies of written submissions and list of authorities shall be in clear and consecutively numbered paragraphs; with relevant headings; bear a concise table of contents; double spaced, font size 12 Georgia, 1.5 inch left indenting and 0.5 inch right indenting; have quotations italicised for ease of reference; and have uniform abbreviations or designations. Parties shall also file a brief note highlighting ratio descendi, relevance and applicability of the authorities.

6. Litigants and Counsel who desire to peruse Court files will do so in the Registry upon payment of the requisite fees during designated working hours. Files shall not be perused in open Court.

3 PART IV : VACATION HEARINGS

1) The vacation directions applicable to the Court of Appeal as given by the Chief Justice, shall apply mutatis mutandis to this Court.

2) During vacation, only urgent matters shall be filed in Court and only at the Court’s main Registry.

PART V -E-FILING

1. Lawyers practicing before the Supreme Court shall register a domain in their name.

2. The domain name shall be deposited with the Registrar of the Court

3. The Registrar of the Court shall cause the domains registered to be published in the Kenya gazette for the purposes of e-filing and e-service.

4. The Registrar shall assign E-filed documents a unique identifier number for purposes of e-filing

5. An Advocate who has filed documents electronically and who has received the identifier number shall receive a filing confirmation from the Registry within 24 hours of filing.

6. An advocate shall serve documents filed electronically by attaching the e-filing acknowledgement bearing the e-seal of the Court to all the parties.

4 7. There shall be an e-filing committee of the Supreme Court set up by the Chief Justice and President of the Court which shall review the system from time to time.

8. A document filed electronically shall be considered duly filed upon the receipt of the filing confirmation from the Registry.

9. Documents filed electronically shall conform to the following:

a) Be in Portable Document Format (PDF)

b) Georgia font, size 12 (double spaced)

10. The Registrar shall ensure proper archival and storage of files.

PART VI LIST OF AUTHORITIES

1. A party relying on Supreme Court authorities shall only supply a summary of the relevant paragraphs, the ratio of the case and its applicable to the case before the Court.

2. A party relying on authorities available on eKLR, the same should be supplied to the Court electronically and not in hard copy, unless otherwise directed by the Registry.

3. Authorities may be bound or placed in a folder with a copy of the List of Authorities at the top.

5 4. The List of Authorities shall contain a summarised analysis of each authority specifying the ratio decidendi, relevance and applicability to the application or

Appeal.

PART VII- PRE-TRIAL CONFERENCE AND PREPARATION FOR TRIAL

1. Whenever there is contention amongst the parties regarding the issues for determination, a Pre- trial Conference shall be convened by a two judge bench.

2. During the Pre-trial Conference, the two judge bench will settle the issues for determination that are in contention and shall limit the time parties or their advocates will take to make oral submissions.

3. A bench of two judges may determine the competence of a matter filed if it meets the requisite threshold. Where they are satisfied that the threshold is not met, they may give an order dismissing the matter summarily.

4. A bench of two judges shall give directions where an application has been referred to it by the Registrar for lack of a Notice of opposition or a replying affidavit. Such directions may include an order allowing the application, or setting it down for ex- parte hearing.

5.Parties may apply to the Court to have a bench of five judges to review a determination made by the two- judge bench.

6 PART VIII -PREPARATION OF COURT ORDERS AND DECREES

1. For expeditious extraction of Orders in urgent Applications and decrees of the Court, advocates may prepare draft Orders in electronic form. The court will approve the draft with or without amendments and have a fair one executed and sealed shortly after grant of the orders sought.

2. Where parties disagree on the draft Order, the Registrar shall rule on it. The parties have the right to appeal the Registrar’s decision to a single Judge.

PART IX -MISCELLANOUS DIRECTIONS

1. In matters where parties have intimated to Court that they are pursuing out of court settlement the matters shall be mentioned as directed by the Court to confirm progress of the settlement discussions

2. Where a matter is taken out at the instance of the Court, the matter will be given a priority hearing date.

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