•Several contestants who lost have indicated they will go to court to challenge the results.
•As a consultant to international organizations, Prof Toplak has worked in Uganda, Canada, the United States, France, Finland, Latvia, Monaco, Malta, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia, and elsewhere.
A top election law expert has a word about the role of courts in elections. Prof Jurij Toplak, one of the world’s leading election law experts, noted that a free, fair and credible election is not necessarily synonymous with a perfect election.
“No elections are perfect and flawless. Internationally accepted standards for free and fair elections include elections to be inclusive, transparent, and competitive,” he said.
Last week, international observers – in their preliminary reports – said the voting exercise in Kenya was largely peaceful, even though there has been a spread of disinformation that confused some voters.
Observers from the East Africa Community (EAC), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Commonwealth, the African Union (AU), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the European Union praised the electoral body for conducting a smooth voting exercise, despite reported cases of failed electronic identification kits in some polling stations.
“Overall, the EAC observer mission is satisfied with how the voting was conducted,” said Tanzania’s former president Jakaya Kikwete, the head of the observer group.
However, several contestants who lost have indicated they will go to court to challenge the results.
The most prominent was Kiambu gubernatorial candidate on Wainaina Jungle who vowed to challenge UDA candidate’s win in court.
Kiambu governor James Nyoro also said that the Jubilee team in Kiambu will go to court as a team to request the exercise to be repeated.
The Kiambu gubernatorial race was won by Kimani Wamatangi of UDA.
Prof Toplak, who is a professor of election law at Alma Mater Europaea University and Fordham Law School in New York, said for voters to accept elections, they need to see that candidates and authorities follow the law.
“Over the past twenty years, courts worldwide have become common players in elections. Judges thus play a vital role. They hold the key to free and fair elections and the trust in elections,” he said.
Prof Toplak is the coauthor of the Routledge Handbook of Election Law, the most important book on election disputes worldwide.
He noted that in 2017, when the Supreme Court nullified the presidential election and Kenyans re-elected the president in a repeated vote, the country affirmed itself as a resilient democracy and came out even stronger.
“The Supreme Court’s historic decision set high standards for properly conducted elections. Researchers all around the world studied the 2017 elections in Kenya. In years that followed, several countries’ top courts annulled elections and referendums, including in Malawi, Switzerland, and Slovenia,” said Toplak.
Twenty seven authors from six continents wrote chapters in Routledge Handbook of Election Law, published in July 2022.
They cover international election law standards and election law issues and trends in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America.
Prominent contributors include professor Pippa Norris of Harvard University, experts from Oxford, and the leading Australian election law scholar Graeme Orr.
The book covers topics such as money and elections, fair elections, electoral violence, fraud, ballot design, voting equipment, gender and elections, electoral disputes, the annulment of election results, free speech, and campaigns.
The Handbook is expected to help election commissions, politicians, judges, scholars, researchers, political science and law students to learn from other countries and advance democratic processes.
It is the seminal book on election court case law from all around the world. It presents the laws and practices of countries from six continents.
The Handbook contains the first overview of court cases on elections from all Africa. The chapter on Africa was written by Ugo Ezeh, doctoral researcher at Oxford University. Pippa Norris, a famous professor at Harvard, published a ranking of all countries based on how credible their elections are.
“David Schultz, professor at Hamline University in United States, is the father of the Handbook. He started it, and I joined later to add international perspective. Professor Schultz is one of the most experienced editors who produced numerous encyclopaedias about law and political science,” Toplak described how the Handbook emerged.
As a consultant to international organizations, Prof Toplak has worked in Uganda, Canada, the United States, France, Finland, Latvia, Monaco, Malta, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia, and elsewhere.
He wrote successful election appeals that nullified a referendum, reinstated disqualified candidates and mandated all polling stations to become accessible to wheelchairs.
Advertise with us: Call 0711 046 000 · [email protected]
