Why stakes are higher in CJ Maraga's Judiciary for election

What you need to know:

  • The chief justice's office did well to send out a clarification of his remarks in Homa Bay later in the day showing what he said had been taken out of context.

  • That was the honourable thing to do for a man who has not done a lot of wrong since succeeding Willy Mutunga at the helm of the key arm of government.

Media reports last Thursday that Chief Justice David Maraga had made remarks suggesting the Judiciary had taken some position on sensitive election-related cases had me with my heart in the mouth.

I kept telling myself, “I wish it is not true”.

The CJ’s office did well to send out a clarification of his remarks in Homa Bay later in the day showing what he said had been taken out of context. That was the honourable thing to do for a man who hasn’t done much wrong since succeeding Willy Mutunga at the helm of the key arm of government.

Justice Maraga’s cool head has so far at least spared the institution the embarrassment of frequent internal squabbles and scandalous leaked emails.

He has also been able to shield the Supreme Court from the infamous cartel of lawyers that presided over the reign of inquisition at the Judiciary.

FLUID PERCEPTION

But the Thursday incident will no doubt have reminded the current CJ about how fluid the public perception about the office he holds is. One moment of your lips being misread and you may suddenly find yourself being associated with one or the other political formation. The good SDA man may want to read that Bible verse about the need to guard one’s tongue again.

In the next 43 days, the CJ is best-advised to go ahead and take the verse to heart.

The toxic atmosphere in which the campaigns for the August 8 elections are being conducted suggests that the outcome of the presidential contest will almost certainly be disputed. Of course, a dispute can still be averted if the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission ends up conducting a free, fair and credible election and the candidates undertake to accept the results whatever the grievances.

But that is increasingly looking unlikely, with the Opposition having already labelled the electoral commission’s chief executive and voter registration manager State House agents and alleged business links between the ballot paper printer and the President.

KOFI ANNAN

The post-election horizon in the event of a dispute doesn’t look particularly clear if you consider that the list of eligible local and international arbiters isn’t that long.

Kofi Annan and his team of African eminent persons presumably don’t even feature on the list after their last mediation effort culminated in the prosecution of the current President and Deputy President at the International Criminal Court. The East African Community presidents are widely believed to have partisan interests in the election.

And Nelson Mandela has been dead for years. That leaves the Supreme Court as the first and most important port of call in case of an election dispute resolution.

The court has some experience having handled the presidential election petition in 2013. But the stakes appear higher this time round and it would come under sharper public scrutiny.

@otienootieno