Church leaders threaten to reject new law over Kadhi courts

Church leaders have issued a fresh threat to rally Christians to reject the new Constitution at a referendum unless Muslim courts are removed from the draft being prepared.

The leaders have also rejected an agreement announced after a retreat of the Committee of Experts and members of the Reference Group two weeks ago in Nanyuki.

They say the Kadhi courts should not have been in the current laws in the first case and see in the courts the hand of Muslim extremists who would want Kenya to become an Islam state governed by Sharia law.

Kadhi courts have been in the constitution and the church leaders’ remarks come a day after Chief Justice Evan Gicheru said the courts established under British colonial rule should not be abolished.

“It has been in the constitution and people are asking 'why now?’ We are asking, 'why then?’ There was nothing agreed then by the people of Kenya. It was the mind of an individual,” said Gerry Kibarabara, chairman of the Kenya Christian Constitutional Forum.

Mr Kibarabara said the inclusion of the religious court in the new constitution would amount to favouring one religion over all the rest by introducing a part of its philosophy in Kenyan law.

The church leaders’ statements are likely to stoke the simmering debate between Christians and Muslims on the matter though the latter are yet to officially state their stand apart from the confrontations at the experts’ public hearings.

After a meeting of the experts and members of the reference group in Nanyuki, church leaders led by Willy Mutiso of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya said they had agreed to retain the Kadhi courts in the new constitution.

This was on the basis that their powers would not be enhanced as earlier requested by the Muslims and Mr Mutiso said the representatives would consult their principals before giving a final stand on the matter. It was then agreed that the statement would not be categorical.

“They have now talked to us, the principals, and we have decided they should not be anywhere in the constitution. Their inclusion was a mistake in the first place,” said Bishop Joseph Methu of the Evangelical and Indigenous Churches of Kenya.

The experts are currently meeting at the secluded Kilaguni Lodge and have indicated that they are planning to publish the harmonised draft and their report in the first week of November.

The leaders are also keen to have marriage defined as 'a union between two consenting adults of different sexes’ and the question of life and 'when it begins and ends’ included in the constitution.

The experts have already said they will leave out gay rights from the new laws and the second question is likely to spark debate on abortion.

Muslims are about 16 per cent of the Kenyan population and have the right to decide whether to take their cases, only civil matters, to the Kadhi courts.

A drive to educate Christians about the courts appears to have made little progress. Christianity is the most dominant religion in Kenya, which is officially a secular state.

The meeting at St Andrew’s church in Nairobi on Tuesday had representatives from the Anglican Church of Kenya, the Methodist Church in Kenya, the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, evangelicals and indigenous churches.

The issue of the inclusion of the Kadhi courts was initially not among contentious matters that would be the focus of the team writing the new constitution but it has become evident it could become the proverbial spanner in the works.