High Court Judge George Odunga has given the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) 48 hours to publish a confirmation in the media stating that the voters' register is open for inspection.
Justice Odunga gave the orders following a case filed by Africa Center for Open Governance (Africog) Director, Gladwell Otieno against IEBC. Africog had accused the electoral agency of failing to make the voters' register public.
The court, however, declined to stop IEBC from distributing a certain register of voters to returning officers for use in elections before being subjected to public inspection.
Justice Odunga noted that this would interfere with the preparation of the General Election.
He, however, declared that in the future, IEBC should ensure that the voters' register is open for inspection by members of the public at all times for the purpose of rectifying their identification information.
Judge Odunga added that within 90 days to the General Election, the register of voters should be open for scrutiny for a period of at least 30 days.
In her case, Ms Otieno argued that failure by IEBC to open up the register for public scrutiny after the audit by KPMG, was a threat to free, fair and credible elections.
In her affidavit, the Africog Director stated that the commission was supposed to open the register of voters for inspection 60 days to elections, for a period of one month.
"There are noted inconsistencies in numbers of registered voters in certain areas. It is only through inspection of the register that we will be able to scrutinise and ascertain the actual number of registered voters but the commission has refused to publish it," Ms Otieno stated.
