By Wahome Thuku
Nairobi, Kenya: Even as the Supreme Court concluded the house keeping agenda, lawyers were yet to agree on what issues the judges should decide on, Tuesday evening.
The more than ten active lawyers in the three election petitions could not agree on which issues were contested, and which ones were uncontested.
They also could not agree with the list prepared by the court containing 12 of what the judge’s thought were the key issues.
The lawyers were required to indicate against each of the items whether they considered it contested. One outstanding issue is whether the rejected votes should be used in tallying of votes cast.
The other was whether the presidential votes had been properly tallied leading to the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as president-elect. Another issue was whether the election was free and fair, credible, accountable and transparent.
On Monday, the lawyers were given a three-hour break to discuss and agree on the issues they thought were contested and those that were not. Later in the day, they informed the court they had drafted six issues, but had not agreed on them.
The court allowed them more time, but by yesterday afternoon, they still had not agreed. Lawyer Fred Ngatia said some parties had filed their own lists of what they considered contested and uncontested issues and asked for time to allow all the parties to file their drafts.
The court will address the mater as the first item this morning before embarking on hearing the merits and demerits of the petitions. Once the parties have submitted their drafts of issues, the court would only entertain submissions on what is contested.
