Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu explained the massive pressure they handled prior to offering the verdict in the Presidential petition filed by Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua.
In their final decision, the seven-judge bench upheld William Ruto's election as President-elect by unanimously validating the results announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission - IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati.
Mwilu explained that all the seven judges, CJ Martha Koome, Isaac Lenaola, Njoki Ndung'u, Mohammed Ibrahim, Smokin Wanjala, William Ouko and herself, proceeded to an undisclosed location since parting ways with the petitioners and respondents on Friday, September 3, to deliberate over the evidence.
The judges, Mwilu disclosed, worked non-stop for three days without sleep until they resurfaced on Monday, September 5, a few minutes before they delivered their verdict at 12:00 noon.
During the three-day isolation, the seven judges did not pick up calls despite their phones kept buzzing non-stop.
"The seven of us have not slept since we parted company on Friday and we thank you that you appreciate we work under difficult circumstances.
"We agreed when we left here on Friday that we would not pick any of your calls. Some of you called us but we just couldn't pick them and I hope you understand that we couldn't," explained Mwilu.
She further thanked the counsels who participated in the hearings appealing to them to advise their followers to accept the verdict as final.
"Thank you for appreciating that it wasn't our wish, we were doing the wish of the Kenyan Constitution 2010, the laws of the Republic, the facts of the cases that you placed before us and the evidence in rebuttal. We know that we are incomplete without this side of the bar, the advocates. We appreciate your industry.
"We were impressed by the submissions you took and how deeply you believed in your client's cases. The truth is that some 6 million Kenyans will not be happy today but that is the nature of the work we do and we hope you can advise your clients that it was what was expected. One side had to win," she added.
According to the judgment, Ruto met the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent +1 of the total valid votes cast and garnered 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least 24 counties.
"We declare the election of the first respondent as President-elect to be valid under Article143 of the Constitution," she announced.
In addition, the seven-judge bench ruled that IEBC conducted the verification and tallying of the votes before announcing the final results.
