Following the Supreme Court of Kenya (SCOK) ruling nullifying the Kenyan presidential election, the SCOK is still yet to provide a full judgement. The result is that Kenyans have been left in the dark as to exactly what evidence the SCOK used to justify their ruling. Having overturned the status quo, the SCOK has been extremely irresponsible in not releasing the judgement sooner, in contravention of Chief Justice David Maraga’s contention that they would not repeat the 2013 SCOK precedent to offer a brief ruling without providing detailed judgement.

Having asserted that the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) either “failed or refused” to conduct the election in strict adherence to the law, the SCOK has left the IEBC vulnerable to speculation and attacks. The SCOK went on to add that “the election was marred by irregularities and illegalities”. The very fact that the term “illegalities” was used has left Kenyans speculating about what the illegalities were, with the worst assumption made that said illegalities happened as a result of criminal intent.

There is obviously no straight clear line to suggest that any illegalities were carried out deliberately out of any desire to influence the outcome of the election. None whatsoever! By illegalities did the SCOK mean that forms without watermarks and barcodes are illegal? Were barcodes and watermarks mandated by law? If not, as the IEBC asserted then how can these be declared as illegal. If these forms contained the correct vote tally and were duly signed by all party agents and returning officers, should they have been allowed to stand? Would said signatures as IEBC contended in court not rise to the very high standard of verifiability and transparency? On what basis then should the SCOK be able to exclude such documents?

If indeed, as I suspect, the SCOK overturned the will of the people based on such frivolous standards, can the judgement withstand judicial scrutiny? If not, then the SCOK ruling must be examined and the motivation of CJ Maraga must also be scrutinized and investigated.