Judgment No. SC 69/15 10 Civil Appeal No. SC 9/14 It is therefore beyond doubt that the candidates concerned should have been joined in the proceedings a quo. However as already alluded to above, the question of the joinder of the President and the candidates in the Local Government elections in the constituency of the appellant did not arise before the court a quo. Indeed the court’s declaration as regards its perceived lack of jurisdiction to determine the dispute, precluded such an eventuality. I find nevertheless that even if the court a quo had inclined to the view that it had jurisdiction to hear the matter, it would not have been able to proceed to do so, without the ‘necessary parties’ being joined to the proceedings. This could have come about through the court itself mero motu ordering such joinder, or alternatively, at the instance of the applicant, any of the parties cited, or even those wishing to be so joined3. Apart from the unmet requirement for the court a quo to join the other candidates or for the court to first ascertain whether such candidates had waived their right to be joined, I find that there are other factors that obviate the granting of the relief sought by the appellant in this appeal. In terms of normal procedure, this Court could have remitted the dispute to the court a quo court for a hearing of the merits thereof. This is in view of its determination that the Electoral Court had the requisite jurisdiction to so hear the matter. However, for the reasons stated below, an order to that effect would, in practical terms, be a brutum fulmen:a. In the court a quo the appellant sought to have the ballot boxes and packets in question, unsealed so that he could inspect them and elicit facts and figures that he meant to use in order to bolster his (then) pending electoral petition (s 70(4) of the Act). 3 See in this respect Rule 87 of Order 13 of the High Court Rules, 1971