NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 8 -Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has questioned what he sees as conflicting High Court interpretations of the constitutional timeline for Kenya’s general elections, revisiting a petition he filed in 2018 over the same issue.

📻 Breaking It Down

Omtatah said his earlier case, filed alongside Nyakina Wycliffe Gisebe against the Attorney General and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), challenged the timing of the 2022 General Election.

He argued at the time that, based on his computation of constitutional time under Article 101(1) and related provisions, the election ought to have been held in August 2021, four years after the 2017 General Election.

The High Court, however, dismissed the petition on November 26, 2020, with Justice Weldon Korir holding that the Constitution required elected leaders to serve a full five-year term and that the President, governors, MPs and MCAs had to be elected on the same date.

📌 What You Need to Know

According to Omtatah, the court relied on Article 259(5)(c) and Court of Appeal precedent to conclude that the five-year cycle from the August 8, 2017 election ended on the second Tuesday of August in the fifth year, setting August 9, 2022 as the next General Election date.

Omtatah is now questioning the apparent departure from that reasoning in the latest Malindi High Court judgment, which has interpreted Article 136(2)(a) to mean that the presidential election should have been held on the second Tuesday of August in the fifth year, with the court calculating the date as August 11, 2026.

The senator said the latest ruling raises questions about how courts are interpreting and applying the same constitutional provisions on the electoral cycle.

He recalled that his 2018 petition had been rejected after the court found that the relevant legal question had already been settled by the Court of Appeal.

Omtatah said he accepted the earlier ruling despite holding a different legal interpretation, arguing that respect for judicial decisions is fundamental to constitutionalism.

“While I took a different legal view at the time, I respect the rule of law and the constitutional boundaries set by the courts,” he said.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya