Supreme Court Judge, Isaac Lenaola, cast doubt on the Apex Court's ability to handle a recount in the ongoing suit filed by former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga.
While appearing in the press last month, Lenaola explained that the 14-day timeline handed to the seven-Judge bench was not enough for them to scrutinise the election results as they would have wished.
He argued that the aggrieved political parties have seven days to file petitions and the Supreme Court has only seven days to hear them, limiting the amount of time that may be needed to order a recount.
"Give us sufficient time to determine these petitions. 14 days is ridiculous. These parties file in seven days, we hear in seven days and deliver judgement on the 14th day.
"Now, we cannot do a scrutiny and we cannot do a recount if we wanted to. We are the first and the last Court of call. So are we doing injustice to the public? The framers of the Constitution gave us 14 days and it is not enough," Lenaola explained.
Lenaola also lifted the lid on another crisis involving the manpower at the bench, explaining that the team of seven was not enough for the exercise.
For instance, he noted that the quorum to hear the presidential petition would be affected in case one Judge was not available.
"When they were engaging the Judiciary during the BBI process, one of the things we said is, increase the number of Judges because seven is just not doable.
"For instance at one point, the Chief Justice and Justice Ibrahim Mohamed were engaged in interviews and one Judge was out of the country on official duties. We were four and we did not have the quorum. If we were to ask those who should do this, increase the number of Judges," Lenaola stated at the time.
In a suit presented before the bench on Monday, August 22, Azimio presidential contender, Raila Odinga, wants to be declared president-elect should the Apex court order a recount and find him to be the winner.
If not, the former Prime Minister is praying the Supreme Court to order a run-off by proving that the polls' resultant winner, William Ruto, did not achieve the requisite 50 per cent plus one vote.
"And order be and is hereby made consequent upon nullification of the declaration of the results announced by Wafula Chebukati directing IEBC to tally and verify the count and declare Raila Odinga and Martha Karua as duly elected as president-elect and deputy president-elect respectively," one of the 21 reliefs Raila seeks in court reads.
The Supreme Court has until September 5 to deliver a judgment.
