“It is for the parties and their agents to work out and comply with the order within the time specified by the court”/COURTESY-IEBC
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 29 – Chief Justice David Maraga has warned the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) against failing to fully comply with the order directing it to provide access to its servers for scrutiny, following an application by lawyers representing NASA leader Raila Odinga.
This followed a complaint by Odinga’s lead lawyer James Orengo that the electoral body was frustrating them, with claims that the main servers are in Europe.
“He is saying there is no non-compliance because the people in Europe are still asleep. My Lords, you remember these orders were made while they were wide awake yesterday. So the excuse of saying the people in Europe are still asleep I think is not justifiable,” Orengo stated.
“By the time these orders were made yesterday and Europe is bout two or three hours behind us, they were fully awake. Now we are being told this morning that we have to wait until they wake up.”
Maraga warned of consequences should the electoral commission fail to grant access as per orders issued Monday ahead of the 5pm deadline when a report is due in court.
“It is for the parties and their agents to work out and comply with the order within the time specified by the court. At five o’clock, we want a report and anybody who will not have complied with the court order will tell us why they have not complied and we will determine whether failure to comply was reasonable and we will deal with that at that time,” he said.
Lawyer Paul Muite who is representing the electoral commission stated that the IEBC was complying with the order but indicated that the servers were in Europe.
“The servers are in Europe. We are not refusing to give access. Europe is a couple of hours behind us and we had to wait for them to start working. They have to set up the access window with safeguards. That exercise is going on and I am instructed that they will have completed the exercise in the next one or two hours,” he explained.
On Monday, the Supreme Court ordered that the petitioners NASA presidential candidate Odinga and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka be granted read-only access, with the same extended to President Uhuru Kenyatta who is listed as the third respondent in the presidential petition.
The court further ordered IEBC to produce a technology redundancy system plan, certified copies of certificates of penetration tests conducted of the election technology, as well as GPRS location of each KIEMS Kit in the period between August 5 and 11, 2017.
Log in trails of users into the KIEMS Database Management Systems as well as certified copies of results declaration documents (Forms 34A’s 34B’s and 34C) are also to be provided.
A report on compliance with the orders is expected to be filed by the court registrar at 5 pm Tuesday with parties at liberty to make submissions on the same at the end of the day’s hearing.
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