The High Court temporarily suspended the Registrar of Societies’ order to deregister Pastor Ezekiel Odero’s new life church pending the hearing of a case he filed to dispute the government’s decision to close the church down.
In the ruling, Justice Jairus Ngaah also prohibited the state from meddling with the church’s operations.
He issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the registrar, its agents, or anyone acting on its behalf from disrupting or obstructing the operations of New Life Prayer Centre and Church in the name of enforcing the deregistration published in the Gazette Notice.
“An order of prohibition restraining the 1st Respondent by itself, its agents, or anyone else under its instructions from engaging in any manner of disruption or obstruction of the operations of New Life Prayer Centre & Church, under the guise of effecting the enforcement of the deregistration published in the Gazette Notice. Leave is so granted to operate as a stay of the 1st Respondent’s directive canceling the registration of the Applicants New Life Prayer Centre & Church as announced in the Gazette Notice published on the 18th of August 2023,” the order stated.
Ngaah further said that he was persuaded to exercise his discretion to allow Odero to challenge the gazette notice issued by the Registrar on 18 April 2023 which purported to deregister the Mombasa-based church.
“Upon perusal of material placed before court in support of the application, I am persuaded to exercise my discretion and allow the applicants to challenge the gazette notice dated 18 August 2023 whose purport is to deregister the society referred to as “New Life Prayer Center and Church”, he directed.
The preacher through his lawyer Danstan Omari moved to court under a certificate of urgency where he accused the Registrar of malice and frustrating him.
Odero told the court that the move to shut down his church for failing to file returns was an obvious scheme to frustrate and obstruct the operations of his church.
Omari argued that despite ceaseless attempts by the preacher through his law firm to get the church s file from the registry for purposes of filing its annual returns, the registrar refused to avail the file to his client to enable him to file returns.
” The 1st Respondent intentionally and maliciously conspired to make unavailable the church file in a bid to frustrate the Applicant’s efforts to remain in compliance with the Societies Act by filing its Annual Returns on time”, Omari argued.
Odero further submitted that he was not informed about the decision of the State to cancel the Registration of his church.
He lamented that was not given any opportunity to defend himself and the church to avert the deregistration.
The Televangelist insisted that the decision of the Registrar was a calculated scheme to frustrate him from holding an International Conference dubbed “Meza ya Bwana” that was scheduled to take place for two weeks.
The matter will come back to court on September 20 for further directions.
