Constitution is to blame for rising cases of insecurity
What you need to know:
- Individuals appointed to lead the police knew the impossibility of upholding the Constitution — even as they swore to protect and defend it. After years of taking orders from the President, in a force that communicates through vertically transmitted commands and orders, independence only breeds bewilderment.
- These things have lowered morale and sent many officers to their early graves, often dying without permission from their superiors and causing a great deal of unplanned for embarrassment for the government.
- The National Intelligence Service is unarmed, and does not torture people, which is a great pity. The reluctance and refusal by the courts to automatically deny suspects bail unprompted are further constitutional assaults on law enforcement.
Blame for the massive deaths from terror attacks this past year has been flying like confetti.
Some of it has stuck on the noses of the Inspector General of Police and the Cabinet Secretary for National Coordination and the Interior, who have both been demonised as incompetents, and hounded out of office. Yet, the real culprit is not a person — it is the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
By bringing all the security agencies under the Constitution and elevating human rights above all else, Kenya has invited meddlesome busybodies to weaken the men and women who would protect the country from danger.
Four years ago, an angel attempted to save Kenya by inserting the words national security in the Bill of Rights so that Article 24 (d) of the Constitution as a limitation on their enjoyment. After two months of investigations, the spirit that overpowered the Government Printer to insert those words could not be captured, and the matter was left to rest there.
After the Constitution needlessly installed at the helm of the National Police Service an Inspector General who would no longer take orders from anybody, law enforcement has been suffering from withdrawal symptoms.
UPHOLDING THE CONSTITUTION
Individuals appointed to lead the police knew the impossibility of upholding the Constitution — even as they swore to protect and defend it. After years of taking orders from the President, in a force that communicates through vertically transmitted commands and orders, independence only breeds bewilderment. All police officials enjoy being hired and fired directly by the President, sans the silly spectacle of a public interview.
Bereft of presidential or other political supervision, police have been feeling orphaned in an environment where officers enjoy human rights like other citizens, can challenge disciplinary actions in court, question orders and disregard others because they consider them illegitimate.
These things have lowered morale and sent many officers to their early graves, often dying without permission from their superiors and causing a great deal of unplanned for embarrassment for the government. You post an officer to Mandera and she starts reciting Article 24 of the Constitution. What cheek!
As if the violence visited on the security services was not enough, the Constitution has gone ahead and constrained police action in two important ways. First, suspects cannot be held in custody for more than 24 hours without being produced in court.
GREAT PITY
The National Intelligence Service is unarmed, and does not torture people, which is a great pity. The reluctance and refusal by the courts to automatically deny suspects bail unprompted are further constitutional assaults on law enforcement.
Since torture is prohibited by the self-same Constitution, this is highly inconvenient. Many of the interrogation methods perfected at Nyayo House and other research sites for seeking information — from terrorists especially — require time.
Without the option to squeeze suspects, to bang them in the cooler indefinitely and to show them raw power, the security services have reason to feel emasculated in the face of animal terrorists. Add to these demoralising work conditions the requirement that every police officer undergoes a public humiliation in the name of vetting, and it is to break the spirit of anyone who carries a 13-kg gun.
Unless the Constitution is amended to allow the security services to do their work without being turned into human rights activists, there might be no one applying to be IG — to sacrifice his or her reputation to become a national punching bag — to be chewed and spat out before the expiry of a non-renewable term of four years. Ditto the Cabinet secretary for the Interior.
