Court restrains PSC from paying MPs
The High Court has stopped the Parliamentary Service Commission from releasing enhanced pay for MPs.
The legislators will now have to wait until the court determines a petition lodged Thursday afternoon by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).
The LSK filed an urgent application for a conservatory order and a petition, raising constitutional questions about Parliament’s mandate to increase its pay.
Justice David Mjanja ruled that it was necessary to halt payment of the enhanced salaries due to the grave constitutional issues raised.
“The conservatory orders are, in my view, necessary to prevent loss to the public coffers of sums that would be paid out and in the event the ultimate decision of the court is that the cause taken by the National Assembly is unconstitutional, would be difficult to recover,” he said.
The LSK moved to court to stop the National Assembly and its Speaker, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the Controller of Budget from enforcing the decision by MPs to nullify Kenya Gazette notices that had set the salaries at Sh532,000.
The Clerk of the National Assembly certified the decision through a certificate of nullification that declared that the salaries would be governed by the National Assembly and Remuneration Act thus restoring the Sh851,000 a month that MPs the previous House used to earn.
Justice Majanja said that the certificate, if implemented, would result in serious consequences. The judge noted that that a court should issue a conservatory order where there is real danger that the public will suffer violation of the Constitution and to preserve the integrity of the constitutional bodies.
“The balance is best maintained by the court stopping everything in its tracks. It is the Judiciary that has the ultimate authority to assert the supremacy of the Constitution,” the judge ruled.
“The High Court and the other superior courts will have the final word on what the Constitution means and it is only appropriate in these circumstances to permit the legal process now commenced by this petition to take its course to settle the fundamental issues raised in the petition.”
He judge certified LSK’s case as urgent and issued a conservatory order restraining all state organs, commissions, independent offices, state and public offices and any other person from implementing the National Assembly’s resolution on MPs’ salaries.
The judge also directed the LSK to publish the order and advertise the petition in a newspaper next Tuesday.
The matter will be mentioned Friday for further direction.
The LSK’s case is that Parliament’s action raises fundamental constitutional issues pertaining to separation of powers, the mandate of the National Assembly, independence of Constitutional Commissions, the rule of law and Constitutionalism.
