Love triangle claim rocks lawyer, magistrate divorce case

 

A lawyer has asked a magistrate to recuse himself from his divorce case citing bias and an intimate affair with the plaintiff.

Kakamega-based advocate Edwin Wafula has filed an affidavit in court demanding that Kapsabet resident magistrate Boniface Wachira disqualifies himself.

He is battling a divorce case filed by Diana Wikunza Milimu. Diana is the resident magistrate in Eldoret.

Wafula claims the two magistrates are in an intimate relationship and that they have planned to fix him.

Diana has sued Wafula for the upkeep of their child and divorce.

When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, the court was informed that Wafula, the respondent in the case, no longer had confidence in Wachira.

In the application certified as urgent, Wafula claimed the trial magistrate was biased against him and his advocate.

“That I am aware the plaintiff is in an intimate relationship with the trial magistrate Hon. Boniface Wachira,” the affidavit says.

Wafula said both were judicial officers and that they had been in constant communication on how to fix him.

He said there will be a miscarriage of justice if the case is allowed to proceed and be determined by Wachira.

Diana has cited a toxic relationship, desertion and cruelty as reasons for divorce.

She has also filed another suit demanding the upkeep of their 12-year-old daughter from the advocate.  

Wafula has however dismissed the suit demanding that a paternity examination be carried out.

He had also claimed that the Kabsabet court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the divorce case.

However, Diana in a subsequent affidavit dismissed the claim of a relationship with the magistrate claiming it was part of a wider scheme to stall the case.

Wachira adjourned the case to April 6 when he will rule on the application to recuse himself.  BY THE STAR