Attorney General Githu Muigai has asked the court to dismiss the National Super Alliance (Nasa) suit challenging the Sh2.5 billion tender awarded to Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company for printing of election materials.
He told the three-judge Bench hearing the suit that if the orders sought by Nasa are granted, the August 8 poll will be delayed and throw the country into constitutional crisis.
“If the dates are vacated the public will be thrown in a constitutional crisis of profound and unprecedented manner,” he told the court.
Justices Joel Ngugi, George Odunga and John Mativo heard that if August 8 election fails to take place, article 134 will kick in and completely hamstrung the government.
“In fact after August 8, the government will only be a caretaker until a new process starts. The only functioning body will be my lords be the Judiciary, It is such a radical measure in any way to imperial the date of August,” said Githu.
According to the AG, election timelines should not be interfered with unless it is proved there is breach of violation.
Githu Muigai accused the opposition of filing numerous court cases to block the general election noting that judicial review has been invoked in error to the extend the orders cannot be issued.
“Mandate of IEBC is to conduct elections and before doing so to procure necessary elections materials, this has not been contested. The petitioner has not told court an illegality has been committed not even the process,” he said.
Githu said that NASA conceded that IEBC can single source a supplier and have not said the firm is incapable of supplying the materials sought.
On its Part, Jubilee Party argued that printing of presidential ballot papers should be treated the same as others.
Through lawyer Fred Ngatia, Jubilee argued that candidates in the August general elections should not be players in the printing of ballot papers and thus should not visit the printing premises.
The three Judge bench heard that the Jubilee Party did not have any preferred printer locally or internationally.
Lawyer Fred Ngatia urged the court to strike out the allegation that President Uhuru Kenyatta met the owner of the Al-Gurair printing firm as the allegations are untrue.
IEBC had said that it will send a delegation include representatives of all eight presidential candidates, a representative from the civil society, three representatives from the media, a representative from the Inter-religious Council and a representative from the Kenya Bureau of Standards to verify the on the credibility of the Dubai based firm which is printing the ballot papers.
However Jubilee’s lawyer Ngatia differed with those sentiments that the Commission would send a monitoring delegation to Dubai to witness, confirm and verify in writing that the desired quantity of ballot papers has been printed, stitched and packaged into pallets.