Joint House team hires experts to aid break BBI standoff
Joint parliamentary Justice and Legal Affairs committee chairmen Muturi Kigano (second right) of National Assembly and Senate’s Okong’o Omogeni (second left) address the media at Windsor Hotel yesterday after a meeting on BBI Bill.
The joint Justice and Legal Affairs committees of the National Assembly and the Senate have now hired two consultants to help them answer the sticky question of whether Parliament can re-open the referendum Bill and effect changes before they vote on it.
Prof Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Dr Collins Odote, the two consultants picked by the joint committee, will have to burn the mid-night oil, as they are required to have something to present to the MPs tomorrow.
“In terms of the way forward, we hope that by Sunday we should be looking at the first draft that answers some of the issues that have come up before the joint committee,” said Senator Okong’o Omogeni, who co-chairs the committee alongside Kangema MP Muturi Kigano.
The experts will also advise the committee on six thematic areas, namely the nature of the bill, public participation and its extent, the way of processing the bill, the substantive issue of the bill, referendum issues and status of litigation in courts touching on the bill.
Final report
The terms and reference of the experts include to conduct extensive research on the thematic areas and issues arising, analyse the Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2020 and advice the committee on the provision of the bill, review submissions received from the public, regularly advice the committee on the thematic areas and help prepare a final report on the thematic areas to be tabled.
The question of whether parliament can re-open the Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2020, has become an urgent concern as a section of MPs push for changes to the bill before it leaves parliament.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) also threw a spanner into the works when it said that it would be unconstitutional for the BBI bill to propose creation of 70 new constituencies and proceed to determine where they should be. According to the commission, that is too prescriptive and usurps its constitutional mandate to delineate electoral boundaries.
Deputy President William Ruto has also been calling for amendments to the BBI to create a “win-win” non-contested referendum.
At a press conference yesterday at Windsor Hotel where the MPs have been meeting, Mr Kigano strenuously pushed back against suggestions of divisions within the joint committee over the question to re-open the bill for amendments but conceded that “we can have small disagreement over certain things.”
The joint committee received memoranda from 65 individuals and institutions, including IEBC.
“All the materials and opinions that we have gathered we have to sift through and compose a report. As you know this is a novel area. Article 257 is a special article that deals with special circumstances, being a bill brought by popular initiative. The report that we wish to compose should be fairly exhaustive. It is not a simple exercise but as you can see the members here, they can rise to the occasion and they have done exactly that,” said Mr Kigano.The joint committee was planning to have the report ready by Wednesday ahead of its tabling on Thursday. But with the new Covid-19 containment measures announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday, the tabling of the report as had been planned is in doubt.
Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi while giving the committee 10 more days to finalise the report said it has to be tabled on Thursday next week without fail.
“I now order that the report be put on the order for next week whether or not it will be there, the House will debate on it,” Speaker Muturi said.
The joint committee of both the National Assembly and Senate was tasked to steer the BBI bill through public participation and table a report in their respective Houses on Tuesday this week but the committee asked for an extension of two weeks, saying there more legal and constitutional issues that emerged during public participation that needs to be thrashed out the experts.
Mr Kigano had this week told MPs that since this is the first time that the House is considering a proposal to amend the constitution by way of popular initiative under Article 257, various constitutional, legal and procedural issues was expected to arise.
