Balancing the Scales of Electoral Justice and lends credibility and legitimacy to the electoral process in any democratic system.12 Electoral disputes are essentially political contestations, which should ideally be left to politicians to resolve.13 However, the electoral process from which they arise is also legal in nature and embraces wider and fundamental aspects of the rule of law and governance principles,14 which call for resolution by an independent and non-partisan body enjoying public confidence. Because of its neutrality and impartiality15 and more importantly being the vanguard of the rule of law16 the “final interpreter of the Constitution,”17 the judiciary, in most common law jurisdictions, is considered the right organ of state to resolve electoral disputes and its jurisdiction to do so is, in most cases, entrenched in the national constitution.18 In electoral disputes, scrutiny is one of the tools the court employs to determine the integrity and credibility of an electoral process. The term “scrutiny” has not been defined in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 (the Constitution) or the Elections Act, 201119 (the Elections Act). It is a term with complex layers of meaning. The ordinary English dictionary defines it as a close and thorough examination, observation or study.20 In election dispute resolution jurisprudence, courts have defined scrutiny as a technical term, which refers to a court supervised forensic investigation into the validity of the votes cast in an election,21 and the subsequent determination of who ought to have been returned as the winning candidate.22 12 International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections’ (GUARDE) (2011) 11. 13 Bush v. Gore, (200) 531 U.S.; In Germany, Under Article 41 of the German Basic Law, objections challenging the validity of federal elections are heard by the Committee for Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag which makes recommendations to the Bundestag for a final plenary decision. In most Latin American countries, electoral tribunals are the entities designated to resolve such disputes while in the United States and some countries in Latin America and Europe, mixed systems of ordinary courts and specialized tribunals are used. 14 G Tardi, ‘Judicial Recount of Election Results: The Saskatchewan Experience in 2000,’ MSU-DCL Journal of International Law (2001) 10, 475,, http://www.heinonline.org, at 23 October 2015. 15 R Hirschl, ‘The New Constitution and the Judicialization of Pure Politics Worldwide,’ (2006) 75 Fordham Law Review 721. Available at, http://www.ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol75/iss2/14. 16 G Tardi, ‘Judicial Recount of Election Results: The Saskatchewan Experience in 2000,’ MSU-DCL Journal of International Law (2001) 10, 465,, http://www.heinonline.org, at 23 October 2015. 17 International Development Law Organization (IDLO) and Judiciary Training Institute (JTI) and Katiba Institute (2015) Animating Devolution in Kenya, The Role of the Judiciary, A commentary and Analysis of Kenya’s Emerging Devolution Jurisprudence under the New Constitution, (2015) 150 18 In Kenya, this jurisdiction is set out in Articles 105 and 140 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. 19 The Kenyan Elections Act, 2011 (No. 24 of 2011). 20 Oxford University Press, The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, (2011) 12th ed. 21 Halsbury’s Laws of England, (1990) 4th ed, 12, 454. 22 Robert Chapman v. Silas Rand (1885) 11 SCR 312. 245