Chief Justice David Maraga and his six colleagues have retreated to a secluded place to write presidential petition judgment as they race against time.
The verdict should be delivered by Friday and the seven Supreme Court judges have a huge task as they extract information from the more than 70,000 pages filed by various parties.
AUDIT
Commenting on the report filed in court by the Registrar Esther Nyaiyaki on scrutiny of forms 34A and B, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s lawyer Paul Muite said it was fair given the time and the urgency.
According to him, the report fortifies what the commission has been saying all along— that the integrity of the vote was “protected as far as was humanly possible”.
Mr Muite said the totality of the scrutiny established that contrary to a spin of missing forms, all the forms are accounted for.
And in such circumstances, there would be no ground to annul the election.
But Lawyer James Orengo for the petitioner Raila Odinga maintained that poll can only be said to have been conducted within the law, when all the regulations are complied with.
THE ISSUES
He said on the contrary, some 56 Forms 34B lacked watermarks, five were not signed by constituency returning officers, two were not stamped and 31 had no serial numbers.
He added that 32 forms were not signed by agents contrary to Regulations 79 and 83.
Lawyer Otiende Amollo told the court that instead of responding to the issues, the commission, Mr Chebukati and President Uhuru Kenyatta created an imaginary case and responded to it in the way they wanted, suggesting that this was contemptuous to the people of Kenya.
MOMBASA
But Mr Fred Ngatia for President Uhuru Kenyatta said the five forms that were not signed were from Mombasa and disregarding them would deduct more votes from Mr Odinga, because he had more votes from the five constituencies.
Mr Muite maintained that the court cannot be asked to nullify a presidential election on the basis of suspicion.
“No one is challenging the numbers. We are being told they did not have security features. The totality is that they have not discharged the burden of proof,” he said.
“When you retire to write the judgment, ask yourselves whether this election were rigged, by who, where and how?”
