My humble advise to Chebukati, IEBC advisers have failed you big time and your continued reliance on them will bring you down!
With regard to the forthcoming fresh presidential election, kindly ignore all the roadside and partisan pseudo constitutional commentators and seek either an advisory opinion or a final judgment from the Supreme Court with regard to what is meant by fresh elections contemplated under Article 140 of the constitution.
Kindly note that you relied on the Supreme Court Judgment of 2013 to gazette Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga as candidates of the fresh elections. You will note that at Paragraph 290 of the said Judgment, the Supreme Court had pronounced itself on what should happen should one candidate pulls out of the said repeat elections.
Whereas the High Court has now cleared other candidates to run, kindly note that the High court has not pronounced itself on the contents of Paragraph 290 of the 2013 Supreme Court Judgment and as such they remain undisturbed and you can still rely on them to guide you on what to do.
But even if the High Court were to comment on the same, it is imperative for you as a lawyer to know the hierarchy of judicial precedents that guide court decisions in Kenya as contemplated in the Supreme Court Act, the Judicature Act and the Constitution of Kenya.
If you appraised yourself with the above, you’d note that the lower courts are bound by Supreme Court decisions. Such that should the High Court give a decision that appears to be in conflict with the Supreme Court’ s view( whether issued as an obiter dictum or ratio dendi) you need to seek refuge in the Supreme Court and not the High Court.
You should also respectfully concede and appreciate that there are no clear statutory and regulatory provisions that guide and anchor some of the recent decisions you’ve made on the process of the intended presidential elections to be held pursuant to Article 140. In fact it is the absence of law that made you rely on the 20 13 Supreme Court decision.
However, such Lacuna in law cannot and will not be cured with long boardroom consultations or plenary voting by the IEBC commissioners.
With the foregoing I am of the opinion that instead of running to the Supreme Court to seek clarification on the meaning of the word ‘Verification’, you should instead seek clarification on the application of Paragraphs 289, 290 and 291 of the Supreme Court decision of 2013 with regard to the contemplated repeat Presidential elections.
By making the application to the Supreme Court, you shall, as the independent and neutral arbiter in the electoral process, removed the constitution interpretation from the political protagonists to the Supreme Court that had ordered repeat elections!
Be duly guided!
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