A DELEGATION from Liverpool Law Society (LLS) are in Mom-basa on a fact-finding mission to scout out the possibility of twin-ning with Kenya’s second city.
Society president Anne Heseltine, vice president Charlie Jones, and treasurer Jean Harkin flew to Kenya on Thursday.
Their itinerary includes a tour of the Mombasa High Court and meetings with the Mombasa High Court Resident Judge and Mombasa’s senior policeman, as well as meetings with the city’s leading lawyers.
Mrs Heseltine will return with her companions tomorrow when she plans to draft a twinning proposal to put to the society’s committee.
Mrs Heseltine told LDP Legal: “It is a packed programme but, armed with the knowledge and insight gained, we hope we will be able to put together some structure to the twinning project and put a more detailed proposal to LLS committee to approve so that we can formally enter into a twinning arrangement which will be of mutual benefit to Mombasa and Liverpool.”
The society was approached by the International Division of the national Law Society and asked to look into whether twinning with the Law Society of Mombasa would be possible. At the time, the national law society president was Andrew Holroyd, a Liverpool solicitor with Jackson and Canter.
He felt Liverpool would be ideal to twin with Mombasa because the two cities were both major maritime centres and substantial ports, and as such could have common heritage. The Law Society charity supports projects around the world and had previously helped Newcastle Law Society (NLS) set up a twinning arrangement with the Rift Valley in Kenya about 10 years ago. The national society then passed a policy resolution to support projects in Mombasa.
Mrs Heseltine said: “We made contact with NLS and Hudders-field Law Society which has a twinning with Uganda, to see how they had started their projects and how they were set up.
“They advised there was no shortcut to going to Mombasa to see how law firms operate there, what their structures are, to see how the legal system works on a daily basis and how LLS could help in exchange of information as to law society governance, training programmes and various practice management issues.” There is no legal aid other than for murder, Mrs Heseltine added, and the Mombasa Law Society (MLS) has been trying to institute a legal aid scheme particularly for children.
“In addition to this work, Mombasa firms provide the whole range of legal services, private and commercial, just like our own firms here. It is an exciting pro-ject for LLS and one which we hope is as successful as the New-castle/Rift Valley and the Hudd-ersfield/Uganda twinnings, which have proved beneficial to the Law Societies and also to the wider communities of those who need legal services.”
An invitation has been extend-ed to MLS president Samson Okong’o for him to lead a return trip to Liverpool.
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