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SUMMARY:Restoring Leviathan?  The Kenyan Supreme Court\, Constitutional  T
 ransformation and the Presidential Election of 2013 - John Harrington\, Pr
 ofessor of Law\, Cardiff University Senior Research Fellow\, British Insti
 tute in Eastern Africa\, Nairobi
DTSTART:20140120T170000Z
DTEND:20140120T180000Z
UID:TALK49398@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Judith Weik
DESCRIPTION:This paper reviews the decision of the Kenyan Supreme Court in
  the challenge to the Presidential Election of 4 March 2013. The Court's r
 easoning in Odinga v IEBC is read against the background of the widespread
  violence and profound national crisis that resulted from Kenya’s previo
 us\, disputed elections in December 2007. The report of the Kriegler Commi
 ssion into the 2007 electoral process recommended the creation of a specia
 l court be created to deal with election disputes  and this was realized 
 with the passage of a new constitution for Kenya in 2010. The latter was a
 lso seen by reformers as marking a broader  transformation\; an attempt\,
  as Makau Mutua put it\, to 'tame Leviathan'. The petitions before the Sup
 reme Court in 2013 were therefore widely seen as a test for the Court in r
 elation to the resolution of disputed elections\, and more broadly as a cr
 ucial moment in the early history of Kenya's new constitutional dispensati
 on\, held out as founding a second republic\, designed to vindicate the ru
 le of law where the colonial administration and the first independent repu
 blic had notoriously failed.\nThis review is concerned chiefly with the no
 rmative implications of the judgment and the critical issues of constituti
 onalism it raises\, rather than with a factual assessment of the conduct o
 f the election as such. It attends to the manner in which the Court produc
 ed and managed the boundary between politics and the law and\, specificall
 y\, the nature and limits of legitimate executive power. In conclusion it 
 can be argued that the pattern of reasoning in Odinga v IEBC reinforces ra
 ther than challenges the traditional\, Hobbesian characteristics of the Ke
 nyan state.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room S1 Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge
  CB3 9DT
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