Court of Appeal temporary suspend use of manual register
The Court of Appeal has temporarily suspended the judgement by High Court on the use of manual register as backup during tomorrow’s polls.
The judgement was made pending the hearing and determination of the case filed by United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party.
The decision reached by the High Court last week was suspended in a brief ruling delivered by a three judge bench comprising Justices Fred Ochieng, Paul Mwaniki Gachoka, and Lake Kimaru.
The party through its Secretary General Veronica Maina says the integrity of the General Election is likely to be compromised by the possibility of misuse of the manual voter register during elections.
“Pending the hearing and determination of the intended appeal this honourable court be pleased to grant temporary orders staying the entire judgement delivered,” Maina added in an affidavit.
As per the affidavit signed by Maina, the judge made a legal error by failing to recognize that the use of a manual register as the principal form of voter identification is not permitted.
The party further claimed that doing so would render Section 44 of the Elections Act obtuse and academic.
According to UDA, the part assures that there is a backup mechanism for voter identification and will only be activated if technology completely fails.
“The learned judge ignored the rationale behind the decision of not using a manual register, which was arrived at after it was established that the same was open to manipulation since it lacked safeguards to ensure the integrity of the electoral process,” Maina said.
Additionally, lawyer Elias Mutuma claims that the ruling overruled a 2017 Court of Appeal decision that held that deployment of a manual register must be a last resort in the event of complete failure of the KIEMS Kit.
