ICC victims lawyer asks for payment

ICC victims lawyer asks for payment

MONDAY, 04 JUNE 2012 23:44 BY NZAU MUSAU

A lawyer representing victims in the ICC case against Eldoret North MP William Ruto has written to the trial chamber asking to be paid the money she needs to meet with her clients in Kenya. Lawyer Sureta Chana has now written to the trial chamber presided by Kuniko Ozaki asking it to order the registrar to pay her dues. Chana who has been battling with registrar of the court Silvana Arbia over funding of trips to Kenya claims she has not been paid since March 26.

She is also accusing the registrar of micromanaging her, hindering her representation work and taking her for granted. Chana says the registrar has also stopped paying her team of assistants. “The victims' representative informs the Chamber that she, as well as her legal assistant and case manager have volunteered time to write extensive letters to the Registry as well as the present filing, among other matters. Neither the victims' representative nor any of the team members have received any remuneration since 26 March 2012,” she said in her application made last Friday.

Chana's trouble with the registrar began in February this year after the confirmation of charges decision was issued. She sought the court's funding to travel to Kenya and explain the significance of the ruling to her 327 clients. Her request for the Sh1.4 million budget for the trip was slashed to Sh220,000. The decision to slash the amount was done after she had already arrived in Kenya. The registrar later explained that her mandate ended with the confirmation decision.

Chana sought the pretrial chamber's intervention which however sided with the registrar. She appealed the pretrial chamber's decision and won. The appeals chamber said she could continue representing victims until the trial chamber appoints a new lawyer. Following the ruling, Chana applied afresh for funding to travel to Kenya on May 7th. She said she wanted to consult her clients in preparation for the status conference to be held on June 11th and 12th.

In her filing to the trial chamber, she says the registrar delayed in responding to her and inconvenienced her ability to meet a May 28 deadline to submit observations. “For the Registry to wait two weeks, and to then respond with a request for detailed information as to the minutiae of each of the individual proposed activities, amounts to a failure to respect the duties of counsel,” she told the chamber.

Further, she says the registrar sought information which could only be shared between lawyers and their clients. She wants the chamber to find that the registrar abused her discretion by refusing to fund her engagement with the victims who are her clients. Chana pleads with the chamber not to take back the matter to the registrar because she fears it will be delayed once again.

Instead, she wants the trial chamber to order the registrar to pay her in the same terms she was being paid during the confirmation of charges phase of the case. Chana was appointed by the court in August last year to represent victims of post election violence in the case against Ruto and radio presenter Joshua arap Sang. Also appointed with her was Morris Anyah who is representing other victims in the case against deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former Civil Service boss Francis Muthaura.