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The High Court has suspended the Communications Authority of Kenya's decision to censure six TV stations for covering Monday’s Azimio demos.
This is after a lobby moved to court seeking to stop the Communication Authority from enforcing its decision to censure six TV stations for covering Monday Azimio demos.
Justice J Chigiti has granted leave to Katiba Institute to file the judicial review seeking to stop the censure of the TV stations.
The case will be mentioned on May 10 for further directions.
Through lawyer Dudley Ochiel, Katiba Institute argues that CA has unconstitutionally and illegally censured the TV stations.
Ochiel says that CA’s decision violates the rules of natural justice adding that none of the six media houses was heard on the decision to censure them.
Katiba says that the programming code needs to be reviewed once every two years but CA last reviewed it in 2019 which is over 18 months ago
“Besides, having never been gazetted, the programming code is not a law. Worse, the programming code expired in September 2021 without coming into force,” reads court documents
Ochiel argues that the matter is urgent because the CA has threatened liability under relevant provisions of the law including revocation.
In a statement on Wednesday, CA Director General Ezra Chiloba said the coverage depicted scenes that could cause panic or incitement to the public, and threaten peace and cohesion in the country.
