Election Investigations Guidebook that an individual who bears the initial burden of proof is able to prove a particular fact or issue. The petitioner should provide substantial evidence to justify shifting the burden to the respondent in order to rebut (or disprove) the claim instead. This dilemma was highlighted in the 2017 Kenya Supreme Court judgment for Raila Amolo Odinga & Another v. Independent Electoral Commission & 2 Others. The Kenya decision led to the cancellation of the election results of the 2017 presidential election.38 The Supreme Court was satisfied that the petitioner—the losing presidential candidate Raila Odinga—had discharged the burden of proof to a sufficient degree so that the burden shifted to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to prove that the election was conducted in accordance with the laws and rules in place. The court further ruled that the IEBC had not discharged this burden in its responses to the Court. The Raila case is also interesting because the Court, acting in the first instance, undertook an investigative process itself by way of a scrutiny of sample electoral materials conducted by the court registrar. The Court relied significantly on the results of this scrutiny as part of its final judgment. The burden of proof doctrine is approached differently depending on whether the legal system is inquisitional (civil law) or adversarial (common law). In an inquisitional proceeding, both parties to the action have a duty to cooperate in the fact-finding process that is conducted by the adjudicator. In an adversarial proceeding, the importance of which party has the burden of proof is pronounced due to the fact that most plaintiffs (candidates, voters, and parties) do not have full access to the evidence they need to prove the claims made in their complaints. Regardless of the legal system, the idea of fundamental fairness must be adhered to at all times when determining who has the burden to prove a specific fact or claim and how this evidence is produced for the proceedings. Due to the complex and political nature of election-related cases, the process by which the burden of proof is allocated to parties must be clearly defined well in advance of when cases are filed and the distribution of the burden between the parties must be equitable without requiring one party to bear the entire weight of proof when a prime facie case is presented to the adjudicator. 38 Raila Amolo Odinga v. Independent Electoral Commission (2017) eK.L.R (Kenya), http://www.kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin /‌pdfdownloads/‌2017ElectionPetition/Presidential_Petition_1_of_2017.pdf . 32