The Office of Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) will now be compelled to issue a certificate to the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK) after the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT) struck a petition by lobby group seeking to stop the party from operating in Kenya.
In its ruling on the petition, tribunal sitting at Milimani Law Courts said Bunge la Mwananchi had failed to prove how the issuance of a certificate to the party would prejudice its members rights.
Bunge la Mwananchi is an amorphous organisation that meets at Jevanjee Gardens and is known for spurious litigations in both the High Court and the Supreme Court.
The tribunal said the lobby group did not have jurisdiction to challenge the issuance of a certificate to the Communist Party of Kenya as it had failed to prove that its members had any direct interest in the party.
“The intended interested parties application is therefore and hereby struck out for want of jurisdiction,” said the tribunal.
In a statement shortly after the tribunal ruling, the party leaders the judgement has confirmed that CPK is indeed Gazetted according to the laws of the land. The childish and flagrant application by the state sponsored busy bodies that sought to have the CPK leadership jailed for supporting communism and that opposed the change of Party name has been dismissed today,” read the statement signed by Party Secretary General Benedict Wachira.
Wachira said the victory at the tribunal was a win for Kenyan workers, peasants and their class allies and also a win for the global communist movement.
He said the ruling had opened the road for the party to intensify its mass and cadre recruitment across the country.
This is the second time the party is winning in its struggle to recognised under the Kenyan law.
In February, the party went to court after the the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties refused to Gazette the party change of name from Social Democratic Party to Communist Party of Kenya.
The registrar had argued that the party name could not be gazetted because Kenya is a capitalist state and the law did not allow the existence of socialist or communist parties.
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But in an out of court settlement, the registrar beat a retreat and signed a consent agreement undertaking to Gazette the party’s new name and its hammer and sickle symbol.
CPK was represented by senior lawyer Gitobu Imanyara.
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