Court bars State from revoking Uhuru's son firearm licence

The High Court has barred the Firearms Licensing Board from revoking Uhuru Kenyatta’s son firearm licence.

Justice Jairus Ngaah at the same time issued an order stopping the agency from demanding that John Jomo surrenders his firearm without following the due process of law.

Also read: My sons have six guns, says Uhuru Kenyatta

“Leave is, therefore, granted in terms of prayer 2 and 3 of the summons. FJomoor purposes of preservation of the substratum of the suit, leave granted shall operate as stay of 1st and 2nd respondents’ decision seeking to revoke the applicant’s firearm license or demanding surrender of firearm licence no 0000530 or the firearm held under that licence without following the due process as set out in the Firearms Act,” Justice Ngaah ruled.

The court issued the order after Jomo filed a petition to challenge plans by the government to withdraw his firearm licence. 

In the petition, Jomo says his constitutional rights will be violated unless the case is heard urgently.

Jomo has sued the chief licensing officer, the Firearms Licensing Board and the Attorney General.

He says police officers visited his home at Windy Ridge in Karen on Friday, July 21 and verbally demanded that he surrenders the firearms he owns. He says the decision was made without following the process set out in the Firearms Act.

“The unilateral decision by the 1st and 2nd respondents to arbitrarily withdraw or revoke the applicant’s license is illegal and ultra vires since the 1st respondent does not have the authority to unilaterally and arbitrarily withdraw the license without following the set out procedure,” he said in the petition filed through senior counsel Fred Ngatia.

Jomo says he is apprehensive that the officers might deploy brutal force to compel him to surrender his firearms and license and ‘whilst so engaged attract media attention with the resultant publication that the applicant has been dispossessed his firearms thus unwittingly inviting criminal elements to target the applicant,” he says in the application.

Jomo says in the petition that by failing to give him notice of the intended withdrawal, the government officials have denied him a fair hearing as he was not accorded any opportunity to be heard.

He wants the court to grant him permission to challenge plans of withdrawing his firearms license without following the due process.