Independent third world judges lead the way

The stunning news, unprecedented in Africa’s history, broke on Friday morning that the Kenyan Supreme Court had overturned the results of the August 8 elections which the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta, 55, had won with 54 per cent of the vote. The six-bench Supreme Court ruled four to two in favour of a petition by Raila Odinga, 72, running and losing for the fourth time, with 44 per cent of the vote, who claimed that electronic voting results were hacked in favour of Kenyatta. New elections were ordered in 60 days.

Chief Justice David Maraga, in delivering the ruling said: “After considering the evidence, we are satisfied that the elections were not conducted in accordance with the dictates of the Constitution.” The court said that the elections commission committed “illegalities and irregularities…in the transmission of the results,” the details of which will be set out in the written judgment to be delivered in 21 days.

The decision of the Kenyan Supreme Court, already held in high regard in Africa and elsewhere, is therefore a remarkable and historic triumph for judicial independence and integrity. Hopefully the judges will maintain their independence and ignore the distasteful reaction and threats of President Kenyatta who called them “crooks” and threatened that since he is still president, they will have to deal with him.

Under the Kenyan electoral rules, two documents are used to validate the election results. One is from each of the country’s 40,883 polling stations and the other is from the 290 constituencies, each recording the results and approved by rival parties. They are scanned and electronically transmitted to the national tallying centre in Nairobi where they are immediately put online and can be cross checked. But the electronic system broke down and the results were transmitted by text messages.

When Mr Kenyatta was declared the winner, hours after the voting ended, none of the forms from the polling stations had been posted online. The electoral commission later reported that 10,000 forms were unaccounted for. A third of the forms which were presented had no security features such as water marks or serial numbers, leading to the conclusion that they were probably fraudulent. There are many lessons for Guyana relating to both the electoral, where the introduction of electronic methods has been suggested to deal with delays, and the judicial, where support for and strengthening of the judiciary are still insufficient to protect it from political pressures.

On August 24 news emerged from India that the Indian Supreme Court had ruled that the right to privacy