Senate will defend Constitution, say speakers

Senate Speaker Ekwee Ethuro and his deputy Kembi Gitura have said they will continue defending the Constitution even as National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi creates new frontiers of conflict between the two Houses.

Mr Ethuro said the plain reading of the Constitution shows that the two Speakers have to consult jointly before any Bill is introduced in either House.

"Article 110 of the Constitution says the two Speakers shall jointly....that is ‘shall’ and ‘jointly’. It is English. You don't need to be a lawyer to understand what that means. Even in Turkana where I went to school, I know that when it says jointly, it means more than one," said Mr Ethuro.

He took issue with his counterpart in the Lower House for trying to lock the Senate out of legislation despite the clear provisions of the Constitution.

“There’s a reason why the laws, once passed, become Acts of Parliament. The Constitution says Parliament shall consist of the National Assembly and the Senate,” Mr Ethuro told journalists at a breakfast meeting held in Nairobi’s Intercontinental Hotel on Thursday

To the leadership of the Senate, Mr Muturi was misinterpreting obvious clauses of the Constitution.

They argued that the import of Mr Muturi's ruling that he (Muturi) had the sole prerogative on what Bills concern counties meant that the Senate should play second fiddle, whereas the two Houses have to act jointly on legislation.

Firm belief in devolution

The Deputy Speaker said there was no point of speaking about a firm belief in devolution and then proceeds in a manner to frustrate the Senate’s mandate.

“People fight for space or supremacy when they don’t understand what their role is. You just have to read the Constitution. We are in a true symbiotic relationship. What as senators we are going to do is to insist that the Constitution has to be followed,” Mr Gitura noted.

“We have to ask, can there be devolution without a Senate? The answer is No."

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance Billow Kerrow said the duty of the Senate all over the world was in quality assurance on the Bills from the National Assembly.

Though the Speaker of the National Assembly had argued that the bicameral Parliament of Kenya was different from the bicameralism in the United States and in the United Kingdom, Mr Kerrow said the tenets of constitutionalism requires respect to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Senate Majority Whip Beatrice Elachi and Senate Minority Whip Johnstone Muthama all weighed in in support of their Speaker.

They said all legislation affects people who live in the counties, and therefore, there ought not to be any difficulty for the Speaker of the National Assembly to consult the Speaker of the Senate before any Bill is introduced in the National Assembly.

“All we are asking for as the Senate is that the role of Senate as per the Constitution be followed to the letter,” said Mr Muthama.

Advisory opinion

The Senate and the National Assembly have been at loggerheads ever since the National Assembly ignored the Senates input to the Division of Revenue Bill, 2013. The disagreement is now being adjudicated upon in the Supreme Court, where the Senate has sought an advisory opinion.

Mr Ethuro had also written to the Speaker of the National Assembly, late last week, seeking a response as to why Bills were being introduced into the National Assembly without the Senate’s knowledge, but instead of a formal response through a letter, Mr Muturi chose to issue a scathing ruling, in which he consigned the Senate’s role to matters of county governments.

The Senate Speaker said their differences of opinion between him and his counterpart in the Lower House should not be interpreted as a power struggle between their sponsoring parties URP and the TNA.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Devolved Government, Kipchumba Murkomen, said the Senate was compiling a list of amendments to the laws and to the Constitution, and that once that is done, they will conclude their push to have a million signatures in order to initiate the process of amending the Constitution.

“We have networks. We don’t have to shout about it. All those amendments will be ready in the next month, and with our governors in the counties, we will collect those signatures and meet our target within a week,” said Mr Murkomen.

The Constitution requires that anything to do with devolution and on the role of the Senate has to be amended through a referendum.