32. In the case of Law Society of Kenya v Commissioner of Lands & Others, Nakuru High Court Civil Case No 464 of 2000, the court held that;-“locus standi signies a right to be heard, a person must have suciency of interest to sustain his standing to sue in court of law”. 33. Further in the case of Alfred Njau & others v City Council of Nairobi (1982) KAR 229, the court also held that; - “The term locus standi means a right to appear in court and conversely to say that a person has no locus standi means that he has no right to appear or be heard in such and such proceedings”. 34. It is therefore evident that locus standi is the right to appear and be heard in court or other proceedings. Therefore if a party is found to have no locus standi, then it means he/she cannot be heard even on whether or not he has a case worth listening to. It is further evident that if this court was to nd that the applicant has no locus standi, then the applicant cannot be heard and that point alone may dispose of the suit. 35. In the case of Quick Enterprises Ltd v Kenya Railways Corporation, Kisumu High Court Civil Case No 22 of 1999, the court held that:“ When preliminary points are raised, they should be capable of disposing the matter preliminarily without the court having to resort to ascertaining the facts from elsewhere apart from looking at the pleadings alone”. 36. In the instant case I nd that the applicants certainly had the necessary locus to lodge and sucient interest in these proceedings given that they were intertwined in such an intricate manner as a result of the nature and form of a law rm and the client advocate duciary relationship. They owed a duty of care towards one another when it came to the issue of data privacy. 37. Consequently, the notice of preliminary objection falls by the wayside in the same is here by dismissed. Whether the Odpc Acted In Excess of Jurisdiction or Power Conferred under the Data Protection Act. 38. It is not contested that the complaint herein was lodged on July 20, 2022. Pursuant to the provisions of section 56(5), the respondent was bound to investigate and conclude within ninety (90) days from July 20, 2022 that is to say by October 18, 2022. 39. Jurisdiction is everything, it is what gives a court or a tribunal the power, authority and legitimacy to entertain a matter before it. A decision made by a court of law without jurisdiction is a nullity ab initio, and such a decision is amenable to setting aside ex debito justitiae. 40. The locus classicus case on jurisdiction is the celebrated case of Owners of the Motor Vessel ‘Lillian S’ v Caltex Oil (Kenya) Ltd [1989] KLR 1 in which Nyarangi, JA, (as he then was), relying, inter alia, on a treatise by John Beecroft Saunders titled “Words and Phrases Legally Dened” held as follows: “ …Jurisdiction is everything. Without it, a court has no power to make one more step. Where a court has no jurisdiction, there would be no basis for a continuation of proceedings pending other evidence. A court of law downs tools in respect of the matter before it the moment it holds the opinion that it is without jurisdiction.” kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/258092/ 11