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"id": 56698,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/56698/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Abdikadir",
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"legal_name": "Abdikadir Hussein Mohamed",
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"content": "There are, in our set up, institutions which are supposed to bring Bills to the House and then the House debates those Bills. There is an assumption out there that the National Assembly is sleeping on the job. On the issue of the implementation of the Constitution, nothing could be further from the truth. As it is, this House has passed four legislations â a two in-one piece of legislation and three other separate pieces of legislation as far as implementation of the new Constitution is concerned. Those legislations were passed in record time. For all of them, the time was shortened. However, three weeks after this Special Session started, and for the fourth week next week, we will not have work for implementation of the new Constitution. The House needs to demand that we must have business dealing with implementation of the new Constitution before we move. I will tell you later what we, in the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee, intend to do about this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the framework for implementation is such that there are institutions that are charged with implementation. Our Committee is over- sighting those institutions. The other institutions, include the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC) whose Report we are discussing today; the Kenya Law Reform Commission, the Attorney-General and line Ministries. The institution is also time-bound; it is phased. We have a phase that we have gone through which was for 90 days. I wish to report that in the first 90 days, the requirements for the implementation were all met. The second phase is a one year phase. Within that one year phase, the jury is still out. We have only four months remaining to the end of that phase, but a lot has not been done. But since the time is not up, we cannot say that time has not been met. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are also supposed to implement the Constitution in a certain environment which requires us to do this work in the national interest, in the spirit of the Constitution and not to be adversarial. Obviously, as far as the environment is concerned, we have had issues about consultation. The political environment in the country has been inhibiting implementation. Therefore, that is one challenge I will look into later. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the mandate of the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) is such that they are supposed to do the day to day work of handling the implementation. If you look at their report, and I suspect all hon. Members have the report, you will see that it is made up of a background basically setting out how they are set up. Part II contains their mandate and functions. Part III contains the activities they carried out. Part IV contains the progress of implementation they have had so far, including what they think are legislative priorities on page 27. Part V contains the few challenges they have faced, including what they call institutional and organizational challenges, political challenges and what they refer to as core business challenges. At the end of the Report, on pages 31 and 32, they give out what their conclusions are. Following this Report, we had a meeting with this CIOC. In that meeting, we also called in chairpersons of certain other commissions that we felt were important for that meeting, including the Chair of the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), the Chair of the Kenya Law Reform Commission (KLRC) and the Chair of the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC). After that, we had a further meeting ourselves to look into the Report instead of just hearing what they had to say, what we thought were some of the key issues to pull out of that Report and what we thought were some of the ways to handle those challenges. Therefore, the key achievements for the past period for implementation are as follows, as stated by the Leader of Government Business: Within that year, we had the chair and the commissioners of the CIOC. We had the chair and the commissioners of the CRA. We also had the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) set up. In terms of legislation, we had the Vetting of the Judges and Magistrates Bill passed; we had the Judiciary Fund set up; we had the Judiciary Fund set up; we had the Judicial Service Act and we had the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution Act. In terms of the challenges, as I said earlier on, the first challenge is that the legislative pipeline is dry. As I speak now, we do not have any Bill on the Table of the House brought by the institutions that are designated with this process; that is the KLRC; the Attorney-Generalâs office; the CIOC and the line Ministries to bring on board issues of constitutional implementation. That is really an indictment on those institutions. The second issue that we found as a challenge is that the Constitution requires that women, marginalized communities and ethnic communities that have not been considered for jobs before be considered in terms of the employment opportunities. Unfortunately, the data we have up to now is such that the application from those sectors is so low. The first thing, these sectors have to do is self-help. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for example, the CRA had less than 20 per cent applicants being women; the Chief Justiceâs post had less than 16 per cent of the applicants being women and the post of the Director of Public Prosecutions attracted less than 16 per cent of the applicants being women. It will, therefore, help in our opinion, if the women of this country can be told: âseek ye the constitutional offices because that is your rightâ. So, that really is an important message we intend to send. The same applies to minorities or marginalized communities. The next other challenge is the political environment and the reform sector environment. We feel that the energy with which the Constitution was passed has waned. We really need to restart that energy, so that the implementation process is with the same gusto as the Constitution was passed. The elections of 2012 are approaching fast. We see that as a key political challenge to the implementation process and so is the Internal Criminal Court (ICC) process. We also see the continued holding of office of the current Attorney-General as an impediment to the reform process. It is our opinion that, while the Constitution gives the time limit for the current Attorney-General to vacate office, that is the outside limit. The current Attorney-General has been an impediment to reforms in this country. Even though the Constitution really does not bar him from holding office until August this year, really, it is part of the problem in terms of the reform environment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are certain vexing issues that require this House to look at and discuss so that we can come with a unified issue unless the Supreme Court handles these issues. One, when are our next elections? In that line, who and by which manner Parliament will be dissolved? Next, what does consultation entail? Thirdly, what is public participation? Fourth, who are minorities and marginalized people? There are a number of other issues that all require a unified determination unless, of course, as I said, the court pronounces itself on those issues. Finally, we have issues of public and awareness being a major challenge to the implementation process. We, in this House, lose on both sides. The public out there is very aware that a lot is not being done and yet they are unaware of what has been done. So, we lose on both sides. Parliament gets blamed for what has not been done and does not get the credit for what has been done. Parliament also gets blamed for the failure of the Executive, as I have just mentioned. So, we lose on all sides. It is important that we have a manner of dealing with public awareness. In looking at these issues, the Committee has looked at and seen how we can handle some of these issues and what intervention measures we need to take to address some of these issues. The first issue we have picked up is a proactive co-ordination of those institutions that are charged with bringing up these Bills to Parliament. To that end, the Committee will call in the CIOC, the KLRC, the Attorney-General and specific Ministers charged with key chunks of the legislative agenda so that we can move on. The Committee has agreed that Members of Parliament still have the ability and the power to bring legislation to the House. As a final resort, we intend to use that method. If we do not get the required legislation coming from the Executive and those other institutions, then Members of this House as Mr. Mungatana did last week, will bring legislation to the House with the support of the CIOC. Secondly, we should have a broad sector approach for certain key sectors. There are five or six key sectors from which majority of the Bills for the next 18 months are required. These include the Judiciary, devolution, public finance and budget, the legislature and police reforms. If I was to touch on each of these issues, the Judiciary is almost reformed. In fact, the only sector where I can say we are on top of things as far as the implementation is concerned is the Judiciary. The Chief Justice left office. We have passed the Judicial Service Bill and the Vetting of Magistrates and Judges Bill. We have advertised for the Supreme Court judges and also the post of the Chief Justice. The first time, at least for one, I have heard anywhere in the world where a Chief Justiceâs post was open for advertisement. We advertised for the Deputy Chief Justice and the Supreme Court Judges. Over and above that, we have had advertisements for 27 judges of our Superior Courts which in effect is 60 per cent more than what we currently hold. This is 60 per cent of what we currently hold being added to the Judiciary. Then we have set up the Judicial Fund. In terms of institutional reforms, financial independence, new members, a Supreme Court, the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice, the work of reforming of the Judiciary is almost set. The problem is that majority of our people do not know that. I will address that later on. The next issue is devolution. It is really the elephant in the room. The constitutional implementation will either succeed or fail, in my opinion, depending on how we handle devolution. As we sit, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government did set up a task force to handle this matter. As I speak today, they are finalizing their interim report in Mombasa. They ought to have delivered that Report on 31st March as per the instrument that set them up. They have called us back and said they will have it ready by 15th of April. They are supposed to have the final report by July. However, we need certain Bills that are supposed to fall within one year from them, and we are going to give them quite a bit of attention. Next in terms of public finance and budget, we have had meetings with the CRA. Between them, the Treasury and our Parliamentary Budget Committee, the entire budget system of the country will be look at afresh and we will give particular attention to that sector."
}