Nairobi — The Supreme Court has affirmed that compliance to an order issued on scrutiny of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) server has been completed despite conflicting reports on the status of the progress.
Lawyers for Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya flag bearer Raila Odinga claimed that IEBC had refused to comply with the orders, only giving limited access to the servers.
Senior Counsel Philip Murgor told the court that out of the eight servers, the commission had only allowed limited access to server five and some logs were deleted.
"With the limited access provided yesterday to server number 5 our team were able to observe a large number of deletions. We suspect and are concerned that the delay on part of IEBC is to delete vital data," he stated.
"Finally when times ran out not to provide the information we require or provide logs that are not useful to anybody," Murgor said.
On their part, the poll commission accused Odinga's counsel of misleading the court on the status of the compliance to the court order and propagating a narrative in the public domain using inaccurate reports.
"Am quite perturbed by remarks from my learned Senior counsel when he says IEBC is not complying with court order that certainly is not an inaccurate reporting. I think the most important thing is to get an important reporting on this matter," Gumbo stated.
Responding to the concerns however, the 7 judge bench through Justice Isaac Lenaola stated that the compliance was completed and the Supreme Court was only awaiting for the report.
"We received a full report from our technical team that was leading the exercise at IEBC. We have been informed that the process of compliance was completed last night," he pointed out.
"As far as our team is concerned is that the process at IEBC is finish, the process at Forodha house is coming to an end shortly."
The Supreme Court refused to give further compliance orders on the scrutiny of the servers by directing them to raise concerns once they receive the full report later on in the day.
"The court has asked me to respond that should there be issues left unattended too, let those issues be addressed when we receive the report this morning," Justice Lenaola stated.
"You can address the question of what you are calling non compliance, the questions on what servers were not accessed and IEBC can respond to say what are you answers to the complains by the petitioners .Then the court will determine what the import of what you are saying," he stated.
The apex court commenced hearings on the petition on Wednesday after conducting a status conference on Tuesday.
Justices of the court had ordered a recount of ballots form fifteen polling stations listed by one of the petitioners as well as election servers to ascertain claims on system manipulation.
On Wednesday, lawyers representing the lead petitioners - Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua - made their oral submissions challenging William Ruto's declaration as President-Elect saying he failed to attain the 50 per cent plus 1 threshold set out in the constitution.
The legal team led by Senior Counsel Orengo also questioned the discrepancies between votes cast in the presidential election compared to other electoral contests including gubernatorial races held concurrently.
They dismissed reports of stray ballots as well as prison and diaspora votes which are limited to the presidential election -- that could account for the discrepancies -- as improbable.
Lawyer Julie Soweto also alleged manipulation of tallies saying votes cast in favor of Azimio candidate were in some instances deducted.
Lawyers Paul Mwangi and Pheroze Nowrojee completed the lead petitioners' arguments after the court capped the number of lawyers for main parties at four.
Nowrojee faulted IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati accusing him of dangling the August 9 presidential election adding that he should not remain as the head of the electoral agency whatever the outcome of the petition was.
Under guidelines issued by the court on Tuesday, Odinga's team was allocated three hours with six other petitioners in the consolidated suit allotted thirty minutes each with the number of counsel speaking capped at two for each.
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Others who addressed the court were lawyers representing Juliana Nyokabi, Simon Mwaura and Joseph Mutua.
The court also heard arguments from lawyers representing four IEBC commissioners -- Juliana Cherera (Vice Chairperson), Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyang'aya, Francis Wanderi and Irene Masit -- who disowned Chebukati's declaration of Ruto as President-Elect following the August 9 presidential election.
The four commissioners were allocated an hour with each having a lawyer to make presentations in support of the petition.
On Thursday, the IEBC and its Chairperson Wafula Chebukati will have three hours and a total of five lawyers - four of whom will represent the commission - to argue their case in opposition to the petition.
The commission's submission will be followed by Ruto's whose team of four lawyers led by Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia who were allocated three hours.
