A Supreme Court seven-judge bench is set to determine the fate of the Azimio la Umoja One Coalition Party’s petition filed against the Electoral body’s announcement of William Ruto as president-0elect in the August 9 polls.
Even though Supreme Court judge, Isaac Lenaola has stated his doubt about the ability of the Supreme Court to scrutinize election results in a recount of the votes in the ongoing suit by the Azimio head Raila Odinga.
Lenaola addressing the 14- day timeline issued with seven days for filing of the petition left the Apex court judges with just seven days to hear the petitions hence difficulty in recounting votes if the need arises.
“Give us sufficient time to determine these petitions. 14 days is ridiculous. These parties file in seven days, we hear in seven days and deliver judgment on the 14th day. Now, we cannot do scrutiny and we cannot do a recount if we wanted to. We are the first and the last Court of call. So are we doing injustice to the public? The framers of the Constitution gave us 14 days and it is not enough,” Lenaola explained.
Further point out that the seven judges team did not have enough manpower in dealing with the exercise alluding to an earlier call for the addition of the judges’ number as seven proved hectic at times.
“When they were engaging the Judiciary during the BBI process, one of the things we said is, increase the number of Judges because seven is just not doable. For instance, at one point, the Chief Justice and Justice Ibrahim Mohamed were engaged in interviews and one Judge was out of the country on official duties. We were four and we did not have the quorum. If we were to ask those who should do this, increase the number of Judges,” Lenaola added.
The seven-judge panel now has up to 5th September to have given a verdict on the petitioned case on the presidential elections of August 9 polls.
With the demands put in place by the petitioner Raila Odinga, there is to be a recount of the votes or a run-off as he persists that the Kenya Kwanza leader William Ruto did not hit a requisite 50 percent plus one vote.
