CIC cautions Parliament on law implementation

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CIC Chairman Charles Nyachae

CIC Chairman Charles Nyachae denied claims by MPs that there was a conflict between Parliament and the commission, but challenged it to exercise its powers in accordance with the Constitution.

Mr Nyachae called for the need to streamline relations between Parliament and the other independent commissions, saying the House cannot purport to exercise the role of other constitutional offices.

The chairman said the House needs to improve relationship with other organs in developing legislations that would see the implementation of the Constitution.

Nyachae cited the passage of the two Finance Bills in August by Parliament, which he said was done without consultations with CIC.

“Parliament should have declined to debate and pass the laws that were unconstitutional,” he said.

But National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende said Parliament has a role to play in constitutional implementation process and cannot just decline to receive draft legislations over issues that can be addressed during debate and passage of laws.

Nyachae was addressing MPs who attended the Kenya Legislative Development Conference organised by the National Assembly at the Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club in Nairobi.

Nyachae claimed that MPs had taken over the role of the people in formulating legislations to implement the Constitution.

“Public participation is not done through MPs on behalf of the people. The Constitution embodies that sovereign power belongs to the people,” he said. He said although the Constitution has partly delegated the power to organs, including Parliament, MPs must exercise such powers with caution.

Nyachae stated that CIC should be allowed to look into private members’ Bills that border on legislations aimed at operationalising the constitution. ” Our worries as CIC is that if private bills are against the process then we will have problems. Although this might not be a practical problem we need to guard against it,” said the CIC chair.

Nyachae challenged parliamentary committees, especially the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee, to engage CIC.

“There is a need to for greater engagement with CIOC so that we can have a mechanism on how Parliament handles the reports that we submit to them,” he said.

Nyachae challenged MPs to rise above the political divergence to keep the constitutional implementation on track

“We need to work towards a situation where the lowest common denominator in terms of institutional characters is agreed upon without being drawn in political divergence of the moment,” he said.

By Steve Mkawale, The Standard

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