National Assembly accuses Senate of encroaching on its mandate

MPs during the post-elections seminar held at Pride Inn Hotel in Mombasa on March 5, 2018. Members of the National Assembly rekindled their never ending war with the Senate, questioning its relevance and accusing it of encroaching on its mandate. PHOTO | IBRAHIM ORUKO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • They demanded an immediate meeting of the two speakers to draw a clear boundary on the exact role of each.

  • MPs further asked the leadership of the National Assembly to return to the Supreme Court for another advisory opinion.

  • Mr Duale further questioned the role of Senate in the Division of Revenue Bill.

Members of the National Assembly have rekindled their never ending war with the Senate, questioning its relevance and accusing it of encroaching on its mandate.

On the first day of the post-election induction conference in Mombasa, MPs railed at the Senate for working outside the constitutional framework and demanded an immediate meeting of the two speakers to draw a clear boundary on the exact role of each as one of the ways of ending the perennial conflict over the legislative process.

The MPs further asked the leadership of the National Assembly to return to the Supreme Court for another advisory opinion which they said was necessary to draw the line between the two Houses.

“Time has come for the National Assembly to return to Supreme Court. There is confusion in the legislative work and this line ought to be drawn so that the Senate knows its work,” Mr Aden Duale, the Majority Leader in the National Assembly said.

MONEY BILLS

“They want a role in debating money bills which is against the constitutional provisions. They have formed a committee to investigate Kenya Airways,” he said, referring to then Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o-led committee that investigated the financial mess at the national carrier in 2016.

Mr Duale further questioned the role of Senate in the Division of Revenue Bill and the rationale of the House in creating the Committees of Defence and Foreign Relations, which he argued were outside the mandate of the senate’s constitutional mandate as security was an exclusive domain of the national government.

He referred to the dissenting opinion by Justice Njoki Ndung’u in the 2013 advisory opinion which concluded that the Division of Revenue Bill is exclusive domain of the National Assembly and noted the opinion could form the basis of a review of the entire advisory.

NZAMBA'S REMARK

The debate was triggered by a remark made by former chairman of the Committee of Experts (CoE) Nzamba Kitonga when he was giving the historical background leading to the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution.

There have been clamour for amendments to the Constitution, the latest being an effort by Tiaty MP William Kamket to propose for the establishment of parliamentary system of government with the Prime Minister as the executive head of the government.

The MPs demanded answers from Mr Kitonga on the circumstances that led to the adoption of a presidential system of government even though historically Kenya had experienced a mixed executive system.

Mr Kitonga told the MPs the document they had submitted to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) that met in Naivasha to synthesise the document had the senate as the upper House with complete powers to oversight National Assembly.

“It is the PSC that came back from Naivasha with the architecture of the Senate we have today. To save it from embarrassment we developed a Mediation Committee system to place it at par with the National Assembly,” he said.

“The two Speakers must sit and focus on how to implement the articles of the Constitution, where necessary we could amend the Constitution,” he said.

NAIVASHA MEETING

Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni who also sat in the PSC told the conference that the Naivasha meeting had literally killed the Senate.

“We had deleted it, but returned it late in the evening when the ODM wing declared that they would oppose the Constitution if they went back with nothing,” he said.

Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo, who was part of the CoE described the realisation of the 2010 Constitution as a product of political settlement by those who wanted a strong presidential system and those who wanted devolution entrenched.

“What we got from Naivasha was a skeleton of a House in the name of Senate. That is why we decided to remove ranking of which House was upper or lower,” he said.

The Speaker of National Justin Muturi said the advent of Bicameral parliament has heavily weighed on the operations and practices as a Parliament, pointing out that much of the initial discord oscillated largely around lack of concurrence on Bills that required consensus of either House as required under Article 112 of the Constitution, especially the Division of Revenues Bill.