‘Governance audit needed to reform LSK,’ newly elected boss Eric Theuri says

Law Society of Kenya (LSK) president-elect Eric Theuri now says that corporate governance is necessary for determining whether the society's hierarchy needs restructuring to ensure that no supremacy battles take shape within the legal body.

According to Theuri, LSK’s structure has held firm for the most part but the society needs to ensure that there is a clear demarcation on the role of the Council and that of the Secretariat in order to avoid a situation that may lead to infighting within the society.

“A governance audit will tell us whether the structure that we have is one that can sustain LSK and propel it into the future,” Theuri said in an interview on Citizen TV's Monday Report show.

 “I think it will be a good point to start because we intend to rebrand and reorganise the LSK and it would be foolhardy to undertake such measure of rebranding without really knowing whether the structure will be able to sustain growth.”

Theuri added that a governance audit is part of international best practice as such it should be conducted as soon as possible to ensure that LSK can advise and assist members of the legal profession, the government and the larger public in all matters relating to the administration of justice without any hitches.

While ceding that controversy has dogged LSK during outgoing chairman Nelson Havi’s reign, Theuri underscored that his administration will strive to pick up lessons from the previous administration in order to better the society, citing that his main agenda will be unifying the legal body into a cohesive unit.

“So you have to go forward taking into account the lessons that we have learned and one of them is that if there is no harmony within the leadership of LSK then even most of the basic services to lawyers will be affected,” he added.

Theuri was on Thursday elected as LSK’s next president seeing off competition from the Society’s outgoing Vice President Carolyne Kamende and party members Omwanza Ombati, Mathew Nyabena and Bernhard Ng’etich.

Once Theuri gets sworn in on March 25, 2022, he will officially replace Havi who has decided to throw his hat in the political arena ahead of the August polls. Havi is seeking Westlands' parliamentary seat at the General Elections.