Judgment No. SC 69/15 9 Civil Appeal No. SC 9/14 It is pertinent to note that the appellant seems to accept that the other candidates in the harmonised elections in his constituency had an interest in the litigation, as is evident from the following submission made in his heads of argument:“The conditions (that the court a quo could have imposed in terms of s 70(5) of the Act) would have included service of the order on the other interested parties like the Presidential and Council election candidates informing them to attend the opening and inspection and resealing of the packets.” (my emphasis) My view however, is that the type of interest that the other candidates had in the subject matter and outcome of the litigation in question, merited more than mere service on them of a court order granted in proceedings to which they were not party. I see a major difference between serving an order, after the fact, on an interested party, and citing such interested party in the dispute so that they can, if they so wish, file their submissions on the matter before the court. One could envisage a situation where the ‘joined’ parties might have either waived the right to be joined in the litigation, or agreed to a mutually beneficial protocol by which the appellant would access only the material pertaining to his candidature, without having sight of the material relating to the other candidates. The appellant further does not seem to dispute the respondents’ submission that, due to the harmonised nature of the elections, the various functionaries of the Commission in the presence of all interested parties or their representatives, sealed the packets referred to in s 70(1) of the Electoral Act in one ballot box. That being the case, I do not doubt that the granting of an order requiring the unsealing of such ballot boxes in the absence of those who had participated in such sealing, would be to visit unfairness, if not prejudice, on the affected candidates.