NAIROBI ( Halbeeg News) – Twenty Kenyans have filed a case at Nairobi court to bar their government participating in Somalia-Kenya ICJ court, fearing their government may loss the war to Somalia.
According to the petitioners, if Kenya is allowed to participate, it has the potential of permitting an unconstitutional alteration of its boundaries.
The parties lodge their case at Milimani court in Nairobi on Friday.
The case is set to appear for submissions in September 3 just two days after the ICJ’s directive on the submissions.
“The petitioners are apprehensive that unless this application is certified urgent and determined expeditiously, the respondents will continue acting in contravention to the constitution by filing submissions and otherwise participating in the proceedings in the maritime delimitation in the Indian ocean (Somali vs Kenya) with the potential of permitting an unconstitutional alteration of Kenya’s boundaries, thereby rendering the petition herein nugatory,” read court papers.
ICJ on Tuesday announced timelines of oral submission by Somalia and Kenya, both sides having filed written submissions to the court in 2018.
The first round of the oral submission is slated to run from September 9 to 11 with the second set for September 12th to 13th, according to a schedule published by the court’s information department.
Kenya and Somalia had a long protracted dispute over a maritime boundary.
In February this year, Kenya summoned its ambassador to Somalia, saying it was protesting a decision by the Mogadishu government to auction oil and gas exploration blocks at the centre of a maritime territorial dispute in the Indian Ocean, a move denied by Somali government.
In 2014 Somalia sued Kenya at the International Court of Justice.
Late 2017, Somalia won its first bid to resolve a case over a maritime dispute before the ICJ.
Judges at the ICJ dismissed claims fronted by Kenya’s lawyers that there exists an alternative method of resolving the matter.
Somalia wants the court to demarcate the maritime boundary, and to determine the exact geographical coordinates as an extension of its southern borders.
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