Kenya’s judiciary in brave stand

Kenya’s supreme court has struck a blow for democracy and the rule of law that should resonate beyond the country’s borders, potentially for years to come. By a two-thirds majority the judges in Nairobi ruled with great courage on Friday to annul results from last month’s elections, which gave the president, Uhuru Kenyatta, his second hotly disputed election victory in four years. In so doing, they have set a momentous precedent that will require the vote to be rerun within 60 days.

Since the end of the Cold War and the advent of multiparty politics across most of Africa, opposition groups who believe they have been cheated at the ballot box are frequently called on to take their grievances off the streets and into the courts. Until now, such challenges have been uniformly thrown out, sometimes because they lack legitimacy, but in many instances because of the hold that the executive tends to have over the judiciary.

The Kenyan ruling is the first of its kind in Africa where instead judges have marked their independence as well as their ability to act as a check on the abuse of power — establishing in fact and not just principle that there can be a nonpartisan legal framework in which to settle disputed election outcomes. The many regimes across the continent who exploit incumbency to perpetuate their rule through patronage, oppression and manipulation of the vote have been put on notice.

So too have those international election observers whose formulaic rubber-stamping of results has become increasingly insidious — notably in undermining their own credibility, but also in spreading cynicism among the electorate. Since 2007 when Kenya went to the brink of civil war in the wake of polls marred by fraud, there has been a tendency among such observers to brush aside all manner of irregularities in the interests of preserving peace. London, September 4.