You're undermining the constitution, Speaker Muturi told

Senate Speaker Ekwee Ethuro has accused his counterpart in the National Assembly of undermining the Constitution.

In a ruling in the House on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Ethuro said the Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi had permitted the introduction of eight Bills for debate without consulting him as prescribed in the Constitution.

“We are staring at a constitutional crisis.  The legislative process as contemplated by Article 110 of the Constitution has broken down,” said Mr Ethuro as he ruled that the Senate will go ahead with discussing the law to determine the sharing of revenues to the counties.

Mr Ethuro said he had written to Mr Muturi to get an explanation on why the blatant breach of the Constitution was going on in the Lower House.  

“The question is really whether we have a bicameral Parliament or not.  Whether the constitutional provisions in relation to the Chapter on the Legislature are worth the paper on which they are written.  Unless these matters are unequivocally resolved, it is quite clear that the legislative process will remain turbulent,” said Mr Ethuro.

The Constitution at Article 110 (3) directs that: “Before either House considers a Bill, the Speakers of the National Assembly and Senate shall jointly resolve any question as to whether it is a Bill concerning counties and, if it is, whether it is a special or an ordinary Bill”.

While the National Assembly has freehand in all law making, the Senate has to look at anything that deals with the counties –which is pretty much anything—and that’s why the Senate Speaker has to be consulted, so that, if a matter is not germane to counties, it is left to the National Assembly.

The Senate Speaker said it is futile to look at the breach of the Constitution as a mere “supremacy battle” or “ego trip” between the Senate and the National Assembly, because, “what is at stake is much bigger”.

“This distortion needs to stop,” said Mr Ethuro.

The call comes on the eve of the Supreme Court’s date with the senators to adjudicate on the controversy surrounding the Division of Revenue Bill, now an Act of Parliament, without the input of the Senate.

Mr Ethuro went ahead and ordered that the County Allocation of Revenue Bill –the Bill that determines the sharing of revenue among the 47 counties—be introduced in the House. The Bill, published on May 7, this year, has Sh210 billion as the revenue amount to be shared.

The Supreme Court meets today, July 3, to begin hearings on whether the National Assembly and President Kenyatta did the right thing to lock out the Senate in legislating on the Division of Revenue Bill.

The Senate approved Sh258 billion but the National Assembly ignored the Sh210 billion and  President Kenyatta sided with the Lower House and its Speaker Justin Muturi, and assented to the Bill.

“The responsible thing for the Senate to do is to proceed with the disposal of the County Allocation of Revenue Bill, 2013 in the manner set out in the Senate Standing Orders, pending the decision of the Supreme Court,” said Mr Ethuro.

“It is well known that the Bill in its final form at the Third Reading may, and indeed will probably be in a different form than that in which it was read and will accord with the Division of Revenue Act such as it will have been pronounced by the Supreme Court,” said Mr Ethuro.

He ruled that Boni Khalwale (Kakamega Senator) was right about the dilemma of legislating using the figures as approved by the National Assembly or those approved by the Senate.

“Whatever may be our views on the Division of Revenue Bill, 2013, the moment that it was assented to, it became, regrettably, until the Supreme Court strikes it down, one of the fixtures of the Laws of Kenya, going by the name and style of the Division of Revenue Act, No. 31 of 2013,” said Mr Ethuro.

The Senate Speaker also said the matter was not sub judice and that the Senate will not be jeopardising its case before the Supreme Court.

“I also do not think, in all fairness, that the fact that the Senate proceeds in one way or another, in this matter, because of the practical exigencies confronting us, can lead to any conclusion by the Supreme Court that we have abandoned the fundamental constitutional questions that we have placed before them or that we have now acquiesced in the unconstitutional conduct we have reported to them.  It think that the Senate must proceed in this matter in the fashion of what lawyers like to call “on a without prejudice basis”,” the Speaker said.